


Sticking with You

by nutmeag83



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angel Marriage (Supernatural), Dean Winchester Cooks, Dean Winchester Talks About Feelings, Domestic Fluff, Found Family, Friends to Lovers, It's For a Case, Lots of talking in this one, M/M, Magical Bond, Men of Letters Bunker (Supernatural), POV Dean Winchester, Sort Of, Soul Bond, alternate universe s8, canon divergence post s5, making a bunker a home, very offbrand i know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:01:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 38,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28622208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nutmeag83/pseuds/nutmeag83
Summary: Sam performs a spell to temporarily bind Dean and Cas so that Dean can fight a monster during a hunt. Turns out Sam sucks at reading the fine print. The binding is not quite so temporary … or platonic. Oops?
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 41
Kudos: 200





	1. Part I: Home

**Author's Note:**

> Y’all, I wrote this shit in 3 days (the first draft, at least). O_O What a way to start the new year! Be aware that I do my own editing and have no beta. Apologies for wrong words/typos/grammar mistakes. I am an editor in my day job, but I’m kinda crap at editing my own writing. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> I’m going to be playing fast and loose with canon here. This story is definitely canon divergent after S5, though I’d think at least some of the monster-of-the-week events happen as they do in canon. I imagine that after the apocalypse drama settled and Sam came back from the Pit, the Winchesters went back to regular hunting, accompanied from time to time by Cas—no Leviathan, no other world-ending events. Bobby’s still alive, even though it’s after when he’d died in the canon timeline. This is set maybe a month or two after they discover the bunker in S8. I haven’t seen any of the show past mid-S3 in quite a few years (I stopped watching when Charlie died and haven’t done much rewatching since), so I’m definitely working off vague memories and my own ideas and not paying too close of attention to canon. I did watch the first couple of eps that had the bunker in them and a couple of Charlie-centric eps recently just to refresh my memory a bit.
> 
> As for this story, it’s my first foray into SPN fic writing. I really needed to write an “oops, we’re magically stuck together!” story, and because I’ve been reading Destiel fic lately, I figured, why not? *shrugs*
> 
> Many thanks to [Bunker Blueprints](https://bunkerblueprints.wordpress.com/) for giving me lots of pics and a good mental map for the bunker. 
> 
> I listened my Destiel playlist pretty much on repeat while writing this. If you want to give it a listen while you read, you can find it [on Spotify - A Man with a Gun and an Angel with a Blade](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0Ef87PJvBaEn9ooaJEYIgp?si=VYF1ypLYRfiJxZnFU1sx1w).

“It’s odd that I’ve never heard of such a ritual,” Cas said through the bad connection. It sounded to Dean like he was in a tunnel.

“It’s not like you’ve read every book the world, man. If you did, you’d understand my Harry Potter references.” Dean tucked his phone between his ear and shoulder so he could rifle through his bag. He knew he’d packed socks. He always packed socks. They were right up there with underwear and rock salt on his Hunt Necessities list. No, he didn’t have an _actual_ list. He wasn’t Sam, the big dork. Of course, if he’d had a real list, he wouldn’t have forgotten socks this time.

“It’s a ritual concerning an angel, Dean. I’m fairly certain I’ve read most such books.”

“ _Most_ is not _all_ , Cas. Look, we’re running really short on time here. Are you in? We need to perform the ritual in the next twenty minutes if we want to get this yeti/chupacabra/Swamp Thing- _whatever_ monster. It’ll go into hibernation after tonight, and the next chance to gank it is in like four hundred years.”

“Forty-two years,” Sam intoned from the hotel desk where his face was buried in the book on angels he’d been scouring in a last-ditch effort to find a way to beat this weirdo monster (yeti-cabra?) they’d been hunting for three days.

They knew very little about it except that it appeared every few decades, killed a handful of people, then disappeared again. They didn’t know how to defeat it, and it was definitely too strong for them to fight the normal way, as evidenced by Sam’s broken ribs and sprained ankle and Dean’s concussion and dislocated shoulder. They’d been at a loss on what to do next when Sam had the genius idea of finding a spell to give one of them a boost of super juice to make them strong enough to take down the huge chupa-yeti (nah, yeti-cabra was better, though it missed the Swamp Thing aspect). Then he remembered something he’d read in the angel book he’d been schlepping around recently to learn more about the dicks they now consorted with on the regular (well, mostly they consorted with just the one, and he wasn’t a dick. In fact, Dean’s feelings for him had begun to move in a worrisome direction over the past year or two that he refused to think about).

“Whatever, Sam. Basically, we probably won’t still be hunting the next time this guy rolls into town, and I’d like to take care of it myself. It’s a bitch to fight, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”

“So this ritual would temporarily boost your strength by tapping into my grace? How do we keep it from burning you from the inside out? You can’t even hear my real voice without it causing damage. I don’t think I’m comfortable with this …”

Dean could hear the anxious concern in his best friend’s voice, and he could easily imagine the half-constipated-half-endearing expression that usually went along with it.

“It’ll be fine, Professor Stomachache. The connection should be pretty small. You probably won’t even notice the drain, if Sammy is reading his Enochian correctly.”

Sam snorted, which could’ve meant that either Sam hated having his big brain questioned or _he_ was questioning his own abilities. Dean was hoping for the first one. This ritual was their last resort, given that Cas was busy on his own hunt and couldn’t help until tomorrow, when the swamp-residing yeti-cabra would already have gone to ground for the next two hundred and forty years.

“I’d just feel better if I could read the book myself. I would know of any such rituals, and I’m afraid that whoever wrote the book misapprehended another ritual.”

“He’s checked his homework twice. It’s a real simple ritual. We just need your consent, a stick of incense, and some chanting. Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am, slimy yeti-cabra taken care of, back home in time for _Dancing with the Stars_.”

The gust from Cas’s sigh was almost strong enough to travel through the radio waves or whatever cell phones transmitted through and tickle Dean’s ear on the other side. He pushed the notion away, not wanting to think about Cas’s breath and his ear in the same thought.

“Fine, I can’t leave the guy I’m tailing, so if Sam is one hundred percent confident–”

“Oh yeah, Sammy’s got this, for sure.”

Sam’s head jerked up, brow wrinkled. Dean shot him a smile and thumbs up, then let out a relieved breath as he found a spare pair of socks in the side pocket of his bag that he swore he never used.

“What do I need to do?”

“Uhh.” Dean looked over at his brother, who was now muttering to himself and looking confused. “Sam. What’s he need to do?”

Sam shuffled some papers with his translation of the ritual. He could manage Latin pretty well, and his Enochian was getting better, but the ritual was written in some weird combo of the two, and he’d been complaining about declensions for the last hour. Whatever those were, they didn’t sound pleasant. Sam handed a page over and pointed to the relevant section.

“Dear God, Sammy, you’re handwriting is getting _worse_.” Sam gave him his bitchface, then went back to muttering and rifling through pages. Dean squinted at the page and read the line into his phone.

“Are you certain, Dean?” Cas asked. “That’s remarkably similar to the wording for another bond–”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if this ritual cribbed the words from another one. People love their shortcuts. Why reinvent the wheel?”

“Hmm,” Cas hummed.

“Well?”

“You’re sure this is temporary?”

Dean dropped his head back and scrunched his face up. “Yes, absolutely.” Cas was a great dude, but he worried too much. Dean caught a glance at the setting sun in the window and swore. “Cas, we gotta do this _now_ , if we’re doing it at all.”

“Damn,” Cas replied. “My guy just left his house. I need to follow. Yes, fine. Do the ritual. Do I say the words now?”

Dean waved to Sam and put his phone on speaker. Sam lit the incense (they’d smell like patchouli for fucking days after this, on top of swamp smell) and held up the book.

“Do you need me for the whole ritual?” Cas asked, sounding distracted.

“No,” Sam replied. “Just say the line, and then you can go.”

“Right.” Cas sighed again, the noise accompanied by the sounds of an angel in a trench coat walking quickly through the woods. He said the line in Enochian, which meant Dean only understood its meaning based on Sam’s rough translation for him earlier. It was something like _I, Castiel, Angel of the Lord and of Thursday, do submit to this bond, to be a helpmate—for protection, for aid, for strength, for support—until it reaches its conclusion_ , but don’t quote him on that.

Sam’s reply had something to do with hearing Castiel’s words and accepting them. He nodded at Dean, who said his line, which mirrored Cas’s, and Sam said his line again.

“Ok, that’s it. Thanks, Cas, we’ve got it from here,” Sam said

“Be safe, Dean,” Cas said.

“You too, Cas.” Dean hung up and raised his eyebrows at his brother.

“Okay, do the rest of the woowoo so we can get to it. We’re literally losing daylight.”

***

The hunt and ensuing fight end up being a breeze. Not only was Dean stronger than he’d ever been, but he was faster—both in body and mind—his brain whirling and his limbs flying. There must’ve been some healing component too, because his aches and pains from earlier fights were gone. Decapitation ended up working on the unholy lovechild between Bigfoot and Alec Holland, but they burned the body too, just to be sure.

Dean was edgy the entire drive back, which was not unheard of after a big fight, and was less surprising when coupled with the angel mojo running through him. He tapped repeatedly on the wheel until Sam gives him bitchface for the third time, so he cranked the radio and sang along with AC/DC for the rest of the (thankfully short) trip.

Still vibrating out of his seat by the time they arrived, Dean went a few rounds with the punching bag and jump rope for a while, then went for a goddamn run when that didn’t calm him. Is that what Cas felt like all the time? No wonder he was often grouchy. Dean would go spare if he was constantly raring for a fight, unable to calm his pumping blood.

After his fifth lap, he realized he was starving, and went inside for some munchies. Two triple-decker sandwiches and a whole bag of chips later, his heart stopped feeling like it was going to beat out of his chest, and he finally settled down with some beer and _Mad Max_ ( _Fury Road_ , because Charlize Theron was _hot_ with a shaved head). Sam gave him a few funny looks every time Dean passed by his library table, where he was _still_ buried in that stupid angel book, but said nothing. He stayed silent until the final car chase of the film, when the big lug clomped over to Dean’s favorite reading nook and paused the movie.

“What the actual fuck, Sammy?” Dean tried to start it back up, but Sam shut the laptop screen.

“Umm.” Sam’s face morphed from determined to squirrely, his eyes darting to the side and his fingers tapping on the book he was still holding. “We’ve maybe got just a _tiny_ bit of a problem.”

Dean sat up straight. “Cas? No,” he waved the panicked thought away. “Cas is fine.”

Sam sat down across from him. “Why do you say that?”

Dean shrugged. “Because he is. I’d know if he …. Oh.” His eyes went wide. How _did_ he know Cas was alright? He wasn’t sure, but the knowledge sat firm in him all the same. Cas was perfectly safe. He frowned at his brother. “What went wrong? Did you say the words wrong?”

Sam shook his head. “I said everything perfectly. And, um, that’s the problem.”

“Sam.” He raised his intonation at the end of the syllable in warning. “What. Did. You. Do.”

Sam scrunched his eyes closed. “I didn’t read the fine print.”

“Aw shit. Am I gonna die again? Yeah, I’m gonna die. Fuck. Cas will _not_ be happy. He was already uncomfortable with doing this …” Dean leaned back in his chair and rubbed his hand over his eyes. He hoped it didn’t hurt, but it’d likely burn him up from the inside out, like Cas had worried it would do. Not pleasant, based on what he’d seen from Pamela’s eyes getting seared out of their sockets when she saw Cas’s true form, a million years ago, before he realized angels even existed.

“No! You won’t die. Well, I don’t think so, but since I can’t find any accounts of this ritual being performed between an angel and human, it’s hard to know for sure …” Sam wrinkled his brow and gave Dean that damn puppy dog face.

Dean waved his hands. “Wait, what? I thought this ritual was specifically meant to be between an angel and human. How are there no accounts of it?”

“Well …” Sam sighed and thumped the musty old book on the table between them. “It turns out that the author wrote this ritual speculatively, based closely on another ritual they’d heard about.” Sam grimaced.

Dean closed his eyes and sighed. Shit like this wasn’t supposed to happen when Sam was in charge. He was the careful, thoughtful one. It was Dean who impulsively jumped into a half-baked plan without thought for the consequences.

“So, what does this mean? Just that I’m the guinea pig who may or may not be fine? Wait and see?”

“A little bit, yes … but we’ve also got two small … problems.”

Dean crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. Sam continued.

“So … Number one. I may have mistranslated a word, but it’s a super common problem. The two symbols are almost identical, and the handwriting is pretty sloppy in the book and …”

“ _What_ symbol, Sam.” It came out less a question and more a demand.

“ _Temporary_.”

It took Dean a few moments understand what he meant. “So the word you _thought_ meant temporary doesn’t mean temporary? Then what the hell does it mean? Oh fuck.” He rubbed his temple. “Let me guess. It’s the exact fucking opposite of _temporary_.”

Well, that was kinda fucked up, but it wasn’t the _worst_ thing in the world. If he could fight better and faster, that was a good thing, right? Wait.

“Wait. So if the bond is permanent, does that mean I can’t die? If I’ve got angel mojo coursing through these veins, does that make me invincible? Will I age? What if I age but never die? Do I keep getting more and more wrinkled and tiny, but never die? Ew no, please tell me I won’t live forever.” He looked pleadingly at his brother.

Sam’s eyes were wide. “Um, well, I can’t say for sure on the living forever part. It’s complete conjecture, but yeah, you’ll be faster and stronger, so you definitely won’t get hurt as easily.”

“Oh, thank God.”

“But that’s not all.”

“What _now_? Oh, there was a number two, wasn’t there? What is it?”

“Okay, Dean, before I tell you, you have to promise not to kill me,” Sam began, and Dean shook his head. Nothing good ever started with Sam saying those words.

“Just tell me” he ground out.

“Right, so.” Sam flipped between a few pages, and Dean was ninety-nine percent sure it was a stalling tactic. He gave his brother a warning look, and Sam slumped in defeat. “This bond … it’s not just meant to share strength between an angel and a human. Or, I guess, for the original ritual it would’ve been two angels.”

“Spit it out, Sam.”

“You might be just a little bit … slightly … umm …” he mumbled something that sounded to Dean like _buried_ , or maybe _harried_.

“Say again?”

“Married?” Sam paused. “Maybe. It’s hard to tell with this weird Latin-Enochian mix, and angel culture is difficult to understand anyways, so I’ll want Cas to look this over and confirm, but … you’re kinda married now? _Bonded_ is a closer translation, though, I think.” He looked up from the book and grimaced. “Oops?”

There was a rushing in Dean’s ears. No. No. Nope. This was _not_ happening. Sammy’d got it wrong. This was just a misunderstanding. Cas would arrive, read the ritual, and laugh at Sam’s basic understanding of Enochian. He’d explain that, at most, the binding wasn’t temporary, but still, at least the ritual had absolutely nothing to do with angel marriage. In fact, angel best friends did it all the time (did angels have best friends? They seemed an unfriendly bunch, not likely to make BFFs, but what did Dean know, maybe they got together, braided each other’s hair, and dished about their latest smiting). No biggie.

Suuuuure. If only they were that lucky. Dean slumped low in his chair, put his hands over his face, and groaned. His heart beat far too fast, and he tried to keep his breathing even. It wasn’t working. “I hate you so fucking much.”

“I’m _really_ sorry, Dean. We were in a bit of a rush, but it’s my fault I didn’t take the time to read everything thoroughly. And I will work nonstop until I find a way to undo it, okay? There’s got to be a way out of this.”

There was a sort of … tingle at the back of Dean’s mind, but before he could wonder what it was, there was a flap of wings, and he knew without looking that his be-trench-coated angel (no! not _his angel_ , just his best friend) stood before them, head cocked.

“Dean? Is everything okay?”

Dean pulled his hands away, and sure enough, Cas stood just as he’d pictured him, trench coat, head cock, and all.

“Oh, it’s nothing. Sammy here just made a huge fucking mistake, is all.” He glared at his traitorous sibling.

Sam was looking at Cas. “Did you know before you flew here that Dean was upset?”

“I …” Cas stopped and thought. “Yes, I suppose I did.” He frowned. “Is this a side effect of the ritual? Is that the mistake?”

Dean gave a bitter laugh. “I need alcohol.”

After a welcome clap on the shoulder to Cas, he left Sam to explain the necessaries and stalked toward the kitchen, but before he could pull open the fridge door for another beer, he thought better of it. He needed _a lot_ of alcohol if he wanted to get through this. He diverted to the alcohol stash and pulled out the whiskey. He twisted the cap off and took a good glug, and then a second for luck, then headed back to the library and the fate that awaited him there. There had better be a way to renege on this … he couldn’t even think _marriage_ , so he went with _bond_. There was no way he could be stuck the rest of his life with Castiel at his side.

Even if a part of him longed for it.

***

Cas sighed and pushed the book away, then got up and started pacing. Dean had been drinking steadily for the last hour as he watched Sam and Cas scour yellowed pages, debate ideas, and even get into a yelling match at one point. Cas had confirmed Sam’s belief that it was indeed cribbed from the angelic marriage bonding ritual used to join angels in a romantic union (even though Dean still had trouble believing angels could feel love that way) and that it was permanent. Apparently angel divorce didn’t exist, because of course not. Angels were very Extra like that.

The only time Dean had spoken was to ask if there were actual romantic effects to worry about. If all it meant was that he had extra fighting power and that Cas got … something from Dean in return (no clue what that might be, though, as he said he’d felt the same so far and Dean didn’t have anything special to give anyway), then it might not be the end of the world. But Cas had glared and gone back to reading without answering. At that point, Dean started taking larger drinks from his new friend, whiskey, and shut up.

He was contemplating a drunk nap when Cas started his pacing, and after a few dizzying turns, he came to sit next to Dean in one of the reading nooks. Which was good, because he was starting to feel a little sick. Maybe he should slow down the drinking. Cas did that staring-at-Dean-from-too-close thing, then spared a short glance for Sam.

“Sam, Dean and I need to talk.”

“Okay, uh, right.” Sam closed the book he was reading, stacked a few more on top of it, and picked them all up. “I’ll, uh,” he nodded his head toward the rooms, “go to bed now?”

“Thank you,” Cas said, his voice calm and patient.

He was always so patient with them, the dumb humans he’d decided to adopt. Dean still didn’t know why. Sure, he’d rebuilt Dean from almost scratch, fought on their side during all that apocalypse business, and all sorts of other wild shit. But really, what did he get out of the whole relationship? It seemed he spent all of his time bailing the Winchesters out of one messed up hunt or another, and those few times he himself made a mistake that he needed their help to get out of, the mistake was the result of another idiotic thing they (Dean) had done first.

Maybe he was about to tell Dean that he’d had enough, reached his limit. They’d manage this “marriage” as best they could, but from a distance, like divorced parents with joint custody. The thought made Dean feel sick again, and he was contemplating a dash for the nearest sink when he felt a tap on his forehead, the alcohol fog he’d worked on so hard disappeared, and the need to hurl (mostly) went away.

“What the hell, Cas? Give it back.” He crossed his arms and tried for one of those pouts Sam always used to great effect. Apparently it didn’t work on Cas.

“We need to talk.”

“I’d rather not, thanks.” Dean tried to stand to go search for more alcohol, but Cas grabbed his arm to stop him. A rush of … _something very good_ flowed through him, and he really didn’t want to think about how exactly it affected him. He swallowed hard and slumped farther into his chair instead. “Fine. Whatever. What do we need to talk about, Castiel?”

Cas quirked an eyebrow at the use of his full name.

“Many things, but first of all, how are you?”

Dean paused from whatever quip he wanted to blurt out to relax the tension in the room. Fuck, there Cas went again, _caring_ too much about little humans who couldn’t manage to get anything right. And double fuck, because Dean hadn’t even thought about Cas’s feelings since this whole shitshow began. No, that wasn’t quite true. Years into their friendship, he was pretty good at reading Cas’s moods. He knew his friend was more than a little miffed—at the whole thing, at Sam and Dean, at the world—tired of fixing other people’s mistakes, overwhelmed at the lack of easy answers, and just plain upset, like he was a few steps from crying into his pillow, if he had a pillow. There was also that … thing in the back of Dean’s mind that told him that what he read on Cas’s face was true, and also that even though Cas felt all those things, he wasn’t going to leave Dean, and he wasn’t going to give up on finding an answer. Something deeper rand behind all that, but Dean was not skillful enough to figure out what. He usually buried his feelings, so he didn’t even know how to read his own, let alone anyone else’s.

All this was to say, if Dean knew all of this about Cas, then Cas must be able to read exactly how Dean was feeling in return, which meant he didn’t _need_ to ask. So then why was he? A courtesy? Didn’t seem likely, as human emotions were not his strong suit. Granted, this wasn’t just any old human, it was Dean, who Cas cared about, for whatever unknown reason. But in any case, he doubted courtesy was the answer. Perhaps to make Dean voice his own feelings?

He ended up shrugging. “Pissed at Sam. And this dumb nameless witch who made up a ritual and then didn’t test it or change it enough to stop it from being angel marriage. I mean, we have no clue how this is going to affect us, affect you. I’m getting a steady stream of your mojo, which is great for me, but what if I completely empty out your grace? What if it makes you fall? What if you can’t fly anymore? What if–”

Cas put a finger to Dean’s lips to stop the flow (the river of worries that Dean didn’t even know he’d been feeling), and Dean felt a calm settle in him. He took a deep breath, and when it seemed that he wouldn’t continue worry-word-vomiting, Cas pulled his hand away. For some dumb reason, Dean wanted to follow it, to feel that small connection to his friend again, but he pushed the needy thought away. He raised his eyebrow in a wordless question of _well?_ that Cas was able to understand.

“I’m fine, Dean. I’ll be fine. I’ve been checking my grace reserves. There’s an infinitesimal amount flowing to you, but it’s being replaced as usual by my connection to Heaven. And I won’t fall because of this bond. If I was going to, it would have happened immediately. I’m more worried what my grace will do to you. There’s no record of anything close to this being performed on a human before. I’ll need to watch you closely for the next few months. I hope that the amount of grace you’re in contact with is so small that it won’t affect you any more than my healing you would. I expect that your wounds will heal much faster, if not immediately from now on.”

“Cas, you can’t watch over me like a worried mom for months. You’ve got your own life to live, your own job to do. I want this bond to affect you as little as possible. Sam and I can keep a close watch, and I can shoot you a prayer if I start feeling bad. You can pop in once every couple of weeks for a deeper angel diagnostic.” Dean felt a shiver of sadness run through him at the thought of not seeing Cas more frequently, but he shook the feeling away. That was weird. He was usually completely fine not seeing Cas often. Well, as fine as he could be, given– nope, not going there now.

“Ah, yes. That’s the other thing …”

Cas lowered his gaze to his lap. The move alerted Dean to the fact that his own hand on his knee was covered by Cas’s hand. He jerked back in surprise and frowned up at Cas, who blushed. Wait, blushed? Angels didn’t blush. They were shameless, and emotionless. Well, Cas had feelings now, but he’d yet to come close to blushing or showing other physical discomfort.

“Cas?”

“The thing is …” Cas paused, then started over. “Though some of the effects of the ritual were immediate, there are some that need to settle in slowly over time. The best way for that to occur is physical contact. It allows for our essences to mix, to learn each other.”

“So, what. We gotta hold hands for a few weeks?” He had a thought and immediately panicked. He almost didn’t ask, but ignorance would not last long no matter how far he ran from it, so he manned up and asked. “Uh, we don’t have to have, like, angel sex, do we?” Funny that, even though his usual no homo reaction would be to retreat, this time he felt the need to cling on, so he put his hand back down, this time on top of Cas’s, which had fallen to his chair arm when Dean initially pulled back.

“No! No. I mean, angel sex isn’t exactly a thing, though there is a dance that melds graces that is often done by angels who share a romantic bond, and I have heard it _is_ pleasurable, in a sense, but you wouldn’t be able to do that, as a human. You’d need to become energy waves, and I don’t think that’s possible, even with our bond.” Cas looked thoughtful.

“Do we, uh, need to do a human version …?” _Sex_ , he could say _sex_. He’d already said it. But he suddenly felt like a blushing Catholic school girl. Fuck this whole situation. It was. So. Messed. Up.

“Ah, no. No version of … sex is required for the bond. Just some physical connection, I would say skin to skin. Hand holding,” Cas added after seeing Dean’s still panicked expression,” should be enough.”

Dean closed his eyes and shook his head. Hand holding was better than the alternative, true, but it was still difficult to take in. He had a feeling he’d need to confront some long-buried feelings very soon, whether he wanted to or not. Close proximity to his best friend for weeks would _not_ be easy.

“Uh, how long do we need to do this for?”

“A quick touch two or three times an hour, though the more constant the touch, the quicker the bond will settle. You’ll feel the pull when the need becomes absolutely necessary, and relief when the touch has done its job.”

“No, I mean– well, actually, that explains a few things …” Dean thought back to every time he felt anxious over the last hour or two and a touch between the two of them calmed him. Some biological imperative, it seemed, to use Sam speak. “I meant, how long will it take the bond to settle? A few days? Weeks?” He prayed for the former, but prepared for the latter.

Cas shrugged. “It’s hard to say. The bond has always been performed in Heaven, and only between angels. Not only does time work differently in Heaven, but your own human vessel will react differently to the bond than an angel’s Heavenly vessel. In fact, my own human vessel will likely react differently as well. If I had to estimate, I’d say between two months and two years.”

Dean choked on air. “What the fuck, Cas? One, that’s not an estimate, that’s throwing numbers against a wall and seeing what sticks, and two, how can you say that so casually? We’re going to be angel handcuffed together for some unknown amount of time, and you act like we’re discussing where to go for taco Tuesday. This is our fucking lives we’re talking about here. You can’t just act like it’s no biggie.”

Cas stiffened and pulled his hand away, and Dean felt and hated the loss immediately. Damn bond, fucking with his mind already. He sat back and rubbed his temple.

“You know what? This is a lot to take in. I think I need a breather.” He stood up, and Cas mirrored the movement, reaching out a hand when Dean took a few steps back ( _leave a little room for the holy spirit_ , Dean thought bitterly). “Alone,” he continued, backing farther away.

“The bond,” Cas said, looking small and confused.

“Just a little time alone, Cas, please,” Dean pleaded, ignoring how Cas’s expression tore at his heart. “How long until we absolutely need to touch again?”

Cas shrugged, eyes to the ground. “Twenty, thirty minutes? At the very most, maybe an hour. We’ll feel the pull almost immediately, but it will be a small annoyance at the back of your mind. Then you’ll start getting anxious, like when you walk into a room and just know something is about to jump and try to kill you.” Dean huffed a laugh. He knew that feeling very well. He waited for Cas to continue. “Then nausea, like you felt earlier when I was up pacing. That’s all we’ve experienced so far, so I can’t say what will happen after that, but I imagine we’ll just start feeling worse.”

“Awesome, the great angel-human guinea pig experiment begins,” Dean bit out. “I’ll come find you when it gets bad.”

“Dean?” Cas called out when Dean was almost to the door.

Dean closed his eyes a moment, but he turned around and looked at his friend. He looked so small.

“I’m sorry.”

What the fuck? Why did he think this was _his_ fault? Dean wanted to cross back to his friend but stifled the urge. “I’m fucking pissed, but not at you. But I do need some space, if your predictions are true. I can’t … I just …” He dropped his head back and shook it. “I need to be alone.” He whirled and left the room before he could see what his words did to Cas.

He wasn’t even sure why Cas was acting so hurt. He had to be as pissed at this whole thing as Dean was, maybe more. At least Dean got increased strength and speed. What did Cas get out of it? A babysitting job, a bond with a useless human, and even more problems to worry about. It wasn’t exactly even-steven.

He took a moment to stop his apparently unnoticed wandering to punch the nearest wall, then cursed when a bright pain lit up his knuckles. He was examining the split skin and contemplating finding the first aid kit when the pain dulled and the skin melded back together. By the time his skin was back to normal, the pain was gone. He gave his knuckles a final contemplative glance, then dug in his pocket for his knife. He lifted his left arm so the forearm was showing and slid the knife into his skin in a move so practiced it barely registered (his life was really fucked up). Again, he watched as his skin began to knit back together. He felt a tingle at the back of his mind just before the flap of feathers announced Cas’s presence in the hall. His expression was that of a long-suffering mother, watching a child do really dumb experiments just to test his limits.

He held up his pristine arm and grinned. “Look, Ma, no wounds!” He bounced his eyebrows up and down a few times.

“Don’t. Do. That.” Then Cas flapped back out before Dean could reply.

“Spoilsport,” he muttered, but then laughed when he remembered his skin fusing back together. This was going to be useful.

He started walking again. First, he hit the kitchen for a six pack. He was still annoyed that Cas had gotten rid of his alcohol fog earlier, and he planned on recreating that feeling, just for funsies. There was a brief moment of panic that he wouldn’t be able to get drunk, that his body would just heal itself before the haze could hit, but he then he realized he’d already gotten drunk since the bonding, and he let out a little sigh of relief. Of course, that had been early on, and perhaps now that the bond had begun settling, it would be different this time. Only one way to find out. He continued to the garage after his pit stop, thinking he could have some quiet time with Baby before needing his next angel hit.

Within twenty minutes, he’d cracked open his fourth beer, and he barely had a buzz, which meant he _could_ feel the effects of alcohol, but it was far more dulled than it would have been in his pre-bonding days. Dean hoped he’d get to keep at least this little bit, and not have the effects lessen even more as the bond cemented itself further inside him. Shaking his head in disgust, he slid out from under Baby. She had new oil, and her engine sounded great. He was a little annoyed that he kept his car in such good shape that it took very little work when he wanted to really spoil her. But on the other hand, he was proud to have such a well-maintained car, given all she’d been through over the years.

Sitting up made him dizzy for a moment, and he shook his head to clear it. He should probably eat. It had been a while, and he had no idea what his metabolism would be like with the bond. He was reluctant to even step foot back in the bunker proper, though, for fear he’d run into Cas before he was ready to see him. Or that Cas would take his entering the space as a signal to come find him, which would take exactly three seconds with the bond. So instead, Dean sat in the front seat of his car, and worked his way through the last beers in the pack.

By the time he was done, he was finally on his way to (but not yet) drunk, but he had gained quite a few other physical symptoms, and none of them fun. He felt nauseous, and his head had started pounding about ten minutes back. His skin felt like it had ants crawling under it, and the pull to find Cas was so strong, he had to physically stop himself from moving. Dean wasn’t sure why he was being so stubborn about this. He couldn’t win. Cas said the symptoms would increase the longer they were apart, and no amount of mule-headedness would stop them. But he felt the need to test those limits as far as he could, in part because that’s what he did, but also because he needed it to be known how much he hated what was happening, and plant his flag in I Am _Not_ Happy land. Plus, maybe Sam would be the one to find his unconscious body and feel really bad about it. Bitch.

Speaking of unconsciousness, he knew he needed to go _now_ , unless he wanted to hit that stage, but he didn’t make it passed getting out of the car, stumbling, and trying to say Cas’s name before blackness overtook him.

***

When he woke, Dean’s back was resting on the cold concrete of the garage, Sam’s mopey, concerned face floated above him, and something warm and _right_ was at his side, touching from shoulder to ankle, which turned out to be a literal sleeping angel. He felt a tightness at his chest that concerned him until he realized it was just Cas’s arm wrapped around him, hand gripping Dean’s arm firmly but not painfully. Opposite of painful, in fact. Compared to the last hour of loneliness, the contact was perfect. Soft, warm, comforting, like a thick blanket on a snowy day. He closed his eyes and drifted in the feeling. Yeah, this was the stuff.

He was pulled back to consciousness by his brother’s worried “Dean? Cas?”

Dean opened his eyes again and glared up at the dumb face still hovering. “Go away, Sammy, I’m resting.”

“Thank God,” Sam huffed. “Are you okay? It looks like you both collapsed. What happened? One minute, Cas was talking to me, looking a little out of it, and the next, he gasped and zapped himself out of my room. I’ve spent the past five minutes trying to find you guys.”

Had he really only been out five minutes? He felt like he’d had an eight-hour sleep. He sat up, causing Cas’s arm to drop away, and he felt the loss immediately. Done with being stubborn, at least for a while, he immediately put his hand on top of Cas’s, where it lay on the angel’s chest. The relief was instant, but the short separation had roused Cas from his own sleep. He blinked a few times, and Dean didn’t let himself think it was cute.

He’d never seen Cas sleep before. It made him seem … more relatable. Human. He’d been on his way already, what with the feelings that had been slipping under his stoic angel façade lately, but sleep was something different altogether. He wondered if he’d get to see sleeping Cas again, seeing as they were stuck together for next two months to two years, or if the sleeping only happened because Dean had to be a dumbass and test the limits of this ridiculous bond. He hoped it was that, and not that the bond was draining Cas far more than he’d told Dean it was. He might like seeing Cas be a little more human, but he didn’t want him to lose his angeltude (angelity, angelness?)—his grace, his mojo, whatever it was that made Cas _Cas_. He wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if his being a weak human weakened Cas in return. That wasn’t fair. It wasn’t an even exchange. If Dean got super strength, Cas should get something good in return, though what that might be, Dean had no clue.

Cas sat up and shook his head. It had to be weird to wake up from sleep for an angel, since angels didn’t sleep. Dean squeezed his hand and reluctantly let go, though he leaned just a bit so their shoulders touched. Even though it wasn’t skin-to-skin contact, it felt better than being completely separated. Cas hummed softly, and Dean knew he was having the same thought.

“What happened?” Sam asked again, brows furrowed.

“Apparently being angel married means we gotta touch every so often, otherwise the bond freaks out,” Dean said, gruffer than he wanted, but he was still annoyed at this whole shitshow and couldn’t keep the feeling out of his voice. Cas pulled away slightly, and Dean hated the feeling of loss the bond was forcing on him. He could miss Cas well enough on his own; he didn’t need a bond to pile it on more.

“For forever?!?” Sam’s eyes were wide, his mouth open in shock.

“Ah, no. Just until the bond settles,” Cas explained, getting to his feet.

Dean took his hand long enough to stand, but dropped it as soon as he had his balance. It wasn’t like they could go around constantly touching for the next insert-vague-time-period-here. He didn’t want to get used to the feeling. He’d top up only when he started getting nauseous. That seemed like a good limit.

“Maybe we can move this inside?” Dean suggested. “I just spent five-plus minutes on the cold concrete in only a t-shirt and jeans.” He rubbed his chilled arms.

“It feels hot to me,” Cas said, running a finger between his neck and shirt collar.

“I’ve told you, angel, the number of layers you insist on wearing is ridiculous. That can’t be comfortable. How many years have you been wearing the same outfit now?”

Sam stopped them both with hands to their arms. Even that brief secondary contact seemed to calm the bond for just a moment. Dean took a deep breath.

“Wait, Cas, you’re _hot_?” Sam asked.

“Well, yes, as Dean noted, I’m wearing three layers, plus–”

“Cas, you don’t get hot. You don’t feel discomfort at all. At least, you’ve never thought to tell us if you did.”

Dean’s eyes widened. The bond _was_ hurting Cas, he knew it. God, he would comb the entire bunker and every library on the continent to find a way to break this union. This wasn’t sustainable.

Cas just shrugged, though. “I don’t think what I’m actually feeling has changed, only that _how_ I experience it has changed. Whereas before, I would make note of the sensation and move on—like how you would note the color of Dean’s shirt—now I’m not so distanced from the sensation. My way of interacting with the world is changing, I believe.” He looked mildly thoughtful about it, but not concerned, while Dean quietly freaked out, not happy with how this bond was exchanging what it gave each of them. An angel feeling heat and expressing discomfort wasn’t a good thing.

Before he could share his thoughts, his stomach growled loud enough to make the two others turn and stare at him. “What, it’s been a few hours, okay?” He shouldered past them and headed for the kitchen, hoping the chili in the fridge hadn’t gone off yet. A piping bowl of chili and a huge ol’ hunk of sourdough would really hit the spot.

He pulled the leftovers from the fridge, opened the lid, and sniffed. Smelled okay. And angel mojo seemed to be doing a decent job keeping him in good health, when he wasn’t pretending it didn’t exist, so he probably wouldn’t die from it, or even puke from food poisoning. He decided to chance it, and threw it in the microwave to heat. He found the bread and cut off a huge slice, then went hunting for whatever else he could find. All he could scrounge up was an apple, and while it wasn’t in pie form, it was better than nothing. When the microwave beeped, he brought everything over to the table and dug in. After a while, he realized it was awfully quiet, and he looked up to see Cas and Sam staring at him—Sam with his usual “Dean is a pig” disgusted expression, and Cas in confusion, mixed with a slight interest, which was new.

“Want some?” He hated to offer up the last of the food when he was so hungry, but it was Cas. Luckily, Cas shook his head, so Dean dove back in. Damn, that hit the spot. Just the right mix of meat, beans, and tomatoes, topped off with the best spice mix he’d ever tasted. Even the apple was decent, though it’d be better as pie. He wondered if he could try his hand at baking. Lebanon didn’t exactly have a great food selection, as tiny as it was.

“So what’s the plan?”

“Huh?” Sam asked.

“The bond. We gonna go out and field test it, or lay low until we can find more info on it?”

“So you’re suddenly okay with having this bond?” Sam asked, looking skeptical.

“Fuck, no. This whole shitshow sucks, but until we can find a way to break it, we might as well have a little fun.” He bounced his eyebrows up and down a few times and smirked.

Okay, he wasn’t actually quite so chill with this whole thing—he still felt terrible for what it was doing to Cas, and the less said about the constant need to touch him, the better—but now that he was feeling less fainty and his belly was full, he could at least push down the guilt for a little while. They all needed a little humor at the moment.

“I wonder what happens if I get shot …”

Sam literally face palmed and tiredly said, “Dean,” while Cas’s reaction was much more … reaction-y.

“No.” It wasn’t a shout, and Cas didn’t jump up or do any flailing, but he might as well have, for all that the feeling of fear slammed into Dean. He almost physically reeled back at it.

“Fine. Okay. It was just a thought.” He tried to stop his voice shaking at the emotional barrage but didn’t really succeed.

Sam looked between the two of them and said, “I’ll let you two talk it out. I’m going to bed for real this time.” He got up and headed out as quickly as possible while not actually running. Wuss.

Dean concentrated on the last few bites of chili and waited for Cas to break the silence. If he was going to shoot down Dean’s ideas, he’d have to come up with his own.

“Look, Dean,” Cas began, and only then did Dean realize they were leaning against each other’s shoulders again. He didn’t like this bond unconsciously doing touchy things. He had free will, damn it, and no amount of fondness for his friend would make him wish otherwise. No matter how good it felt.

“I appreciate that you want to know the limits of the bond, but we can’t just jump in with both feet. We need to be cautious.”

Cas’s words were soft but firm, and Dean felt like shit for about the eight thousandth time that day. Why couldn’t Cas have been saddled with someone who could do this shit better—the give and take, the caution, the noticing of feelings before he put his foot straight into his mouth. Someone whole who could be there for him. Granted, anyone fitting that description would not get themselves in this mess to begin with. They’d be home, raising their two-point-whatever children—white picket fence and apple pie life firmly in place.

“Yeah. ‘Course. That’s way smarter.” Dean rubbed his eyes, and realized he was tired. The power nap on the garage floor had helped in the short term, but it wasn’t a full night’s sleep. Not that he’d had one of those in years. But it’d be nice to conk out for a few hours at least.

“Look, I’m tired. Think I’ll hit the hay.”

Cas nodded solemnly. “Of course, Dean.”

Dean cleaned up the mess from his late-night snack, then headed for his room, only realizing when he reached his door that Cas had followed. Of course, not like they could spend more than thirty minutes apart. He cursed the bond yet again.

“Right, we can’t be apart all night … Um, well, you can–”

“I can pull up a chair next to the bed.”

“Oh. Uh. Okay?”

The plan didn’t sit right with Dean, but it wasn’t until he was brushing his teeth that it hit him. If Cas was feeling warmth from layers of clothes, then he probably would be uncomfortable sitting in a wooden chair all night, while Dean snoozed in comfort on the memory foam (his best purchase since settling in at the bunker). He was wondering how to offer a more comfortable spot next to him on the bed—it wasn’t weird, they wouldn’t even be sleeping in the same bed; Dean would be sleeping and Cas, an angel of the Lord, not a human, would be sitting next to him, probably reading or thinking existential thoughts or whatever—as he walked across the room and pulled back the covers on the bed. He broke down when Cas pulled up that hard chair next to Dean as he climbed into bed.

“No, Cas. Wait. You can’t sit there all night.”

Cas froze, then stiffly stepped back. “Alright. I can stand just outside your door, if you don’t mind me coming in and out of the room periodically to quiet the bond.”

Dean rubbed his eyes. “No, that’s not what I meant. It’s just that … the chair isn’t very comfortable. You can’t sit in that thing every night for the foreseeable future. You won’t last two days that way. Just … get on the fucking bed, okay? Other side,” he added when Cas looked at him puzzled, waving to the empty side. Dean was generally a middle of the bed sleeper, and the bed wasn’t exactly big, but he thought he could manage to keep to his side if there was someone else taking up space. Hopefully. With the damn bond, who knew what could happen, and he deliberately didn’t let himself think on it.

Cas pulled the chair away slowly, as if he wasn’t sure he’d heard Dean correctly. After the chair was back in the corner, he looked at Dean again in question, and Dean nodded before realizing Cas was pulling at his shirt collar again. “Wait, change out of that ridiculous accountant-in-the-rain get-up and put on some normal clothes first. I’m uncomfortable just looking at you.”

Cas looked down at himself, then back at Dean. “What should I wear?”

“I don’t know,” Dean said in exasperation. He was tired and starting to itch from the lack of contact. “Zap up whatever sounds comfortable.”

“Dean, I have no experience with human clothing, other than what I’m currently wearing. I don’t know what ‘seems comfortable.’”

At least Dean wasn’t the only grumpy one. He softened and waved to his dresser. “Second drawer down, there are shirts and pajama pants. Pick whatever feels nice.” He definitely didn’t let himself think about Cas wearing _his_ clothes. He also kept his eyes firmly on the blanket covering his legs, just in case Cas didn’t twinkle his way into the new clothes rather than putting them on the human way. However, with that now-familiar tingle at the back of his brain and the more familiar flap of wings, Cas was out of his uniform and into a Fleetwood Mac t-shirt and gray pants, and he was sitting on the bed.

“Better?” Dean managed a smirk with the question.

Cas cocked his head and thought about it. “Yes, it’s pleasantly cool, and the material is very soft. I should have realized all of your clothes would feel as comfortable as you always look.”

Dean paused, unsure how to react to that … compliment? “Great,” he finally said. “Now, sleep. Wait! You don’t sleep. Do you need to grab some books, or borrow my laptop to watch Netflix? Or …” Before he could finish, a stack of books appeared on the bedside table. “Right, okay then. You can leave the light on to read; it won’t bother me, which I’m sure you know, since you’ve watched me sleep before.” He didn’t even think of it as a dig until Cas replied softly.

“I’ll keep my eyes on my books all night. No creepy staring.”

_Shit_ , he cursed silently and shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. Just … it’s fine, whatever you need to do to quiet the bond. Stare at me all night, hold my hand, whatever. Just, don’t wait until you’re about to pass out to touch me, okay? I mean it. Do whatever the bond wants.” Not trusting himself to look at his friend again, he turned on his side away from Cas and burrowed under the covers. “Night, Cas,” he murmured, and though the angel said nothing, he put his hand on Dean’s arm for a few moments, and that was almost as good.

***

Dean was surprised to find himself _not_ wrapped around Cas the next morning. He was facing toward him, and they were holding hands rather tightly, but that was as risqué as it got. He used his free hand to rub the sleep from his eyes and the drool from his mouth (very minimal, thank goodness) as he turned on his back and sighed.

“Morning,” he mumbled, finishing his usual wake-up routine.

“Good morning, Dean,” came the reply from his side. He glanced over to see Cas in much the same position as the night before—pajamas on, sitting up, book in lap. His hair had that same just-woke-up-but-artful way that Dean had always envied, plus the five-o-clock shadow he had no matter what time of day it was. It was annoyingly hot. And he did _not_ just think that about his best friend, angel married or not. Fuck, it was only day two of forever. He really hoped they weren’t stuck living in each other’s pockets for two whole years. He was pulling for two months, but wasn’t betting on it.

“Find anything?” He yawned, reluctantly let go of Cas’s hand, and stretched. When he finished, his right hand landed very close to where Cas’s left lay on the bed between them, though he didn’t grab it again—no need to get greedy.

Usually, he was a get-up-and-go type of guy. Not so much because he was a morning person but rather to psyche himself up for another day of living. But this morning, he was content to chill on the bed next to his friend and talk about things. He sat up and waited for Cas’s answer.

“Not unless you want to summon a cupid and make them do your bidding. Or trap an angel without holy oil. Or rename a seraph. Or make Gabriel do the chicken dance while reciting the ‘Star Spangled Banner.’”

“Wait, really?” Dean craned his head to look his bondmate in the eye and saw a mixture of frustration and tired humor on his face. He huffed a laugh. “You’re getting better at sarcasm, dude. Maybe that’s what you’re getting from me out of this deal.” He nudged Cas on the shoulder, then left it there.

Cas chuckled and shook his head. “These books have nothing helpful. I’ll have to start on the next stack this morning. Unfortunately for our situation, but fortunately for angels everywhere, the bunker has woefully inadequate resources on angels.”

Dean felt frustration bleed through their link a little. Not as strongly has Cas’s fear last night, but still noticeable. He wracked his brain for an idea to distract him, and after a moment he clapped his hands. “Okay, I’m banning book reading for the next two hours.”

“What?”

“It’s time for breakfast, coffee, and Saturday morning cartoons.”

“It’s Wednesday, and I don’t eat.”

“But I know you enjoy watching me eat, and Saturday morning cartoons haven’t been an actual thing since streaming services popped up, so it all works out, doesn’t it?” He stood and popped his back, then pointed an accusatory finger at Cas, who was eyeing his terrible suit and trench coat after getting out of bed. “No clothes!”

Cas looked down at himself. “None?”

“No. I mean, no adult clothes. Keep those jammies on, sport. It’s like a snow day without the snow.”

Cas cocked his head. “There is a chance of snow today, actually. Twenty-two percent, light dusting at most.”

“Did you mojo up that answer?” He knew a damn lot, but predicting the weather without even walking outside seemed extreme.

Cas pulled his phone out of his pocket and wiggled it at him. “Google-fu, actually.”

Dean barked a laugh and slung an arm around Cas’s shoulders. “You’re learning, man, you’re learning.” He led them out the door and down the hall to the kitchen. “Okay, the coffeemaker is calling my name.”

When they got there, Dean went to see if they had any pancake mix and syrup left. If they were out, they’d have to get dressed and head into town for supplies. He could have asked Cas to miracle him a breakfast, but where was the fun in that? He really wanted to make them the old-fashioned way. Once he confirmed they had mix, syrup, and even some slightly frost-bitten sausage in the freezer, he turned to get the coffee maker going only to find Cas already measuring out the grounds.

“Where’d you learn to do that?” He leaned against the counter and crossed his arms to watch. Not because he didn’t trust Cast to do it right—the angel always did things perfectly after the first try, and he seemed to know what he was doing, so this wasn’t his first time—but just to enjoy watching him do something so human and ordinary.

Cas finished his careful measuring and grabbed the pot to add water. “Sam taught me a few months ago. He said that even though I had no reason to need to get on your good side, it’s always better to make sure coffee is available before you turn into a ‘grumpy motherfucker.’”

The air quotes and the curse passing Cas’s angelic lips succeeded in drawing a laugh from Dean, and Cas smirked in return. Then he shook cinnamon into the grounds before closing the lid.

“Wait, did Sam teach you about the cinnamon? I thought maybe we had better coffee than what you can get at a Gas-N-Sip, because it’s tasted great, but now that I think about it, I was tasting cinnamon.”

Cas shook his head. “I read about it.”

“You Googled how to make the perfect cup of coffee, didn’t you, you overachiever?”

Cas shrugged. “To do that, I’d need a coffee grinder, access to freshly roasted beans, and either a French press or a gooseneck kettle and pour-over cone.”

Dean stared at him. “I don’t know what any of those words mean.”

“Suffice it to say, I went with the materials available, which include a basic coffee maker, cheap beans, and cinnamon.”

“Well, I like it.” Dean shook himself and focused making pancake batter, but he paused while measuring out the mix. “Wait, if Sam doesn’t do the cinnamon, and I’ve tasted it in my coffee for entire month we’ve lived here, does that mean you …”

“I cheated a little,” Cas confessed. “I wasn’t always available to make it by hand, so sometimes I just set it up from afar and asked it to start brewing when you woke up.” He looked worried, and that just wouldn’t do.

Dean shook head and went back to the pancakes. “You’re too much, you know that, angel? Just don’t feel like you need to, for my sake. I’m likely to turn into a lazy son of a bitch if you pamper me too much.” He shot Cas a wink at that last bit, then grabbed the whisk to mix up the batter.

He had to admit it was nice, doing this domestic morning thing with someone. Sam was a run-at-dawn, gulp-down-a-smoothie kind of guy most mornings they stayed at the bunker, which made Dean sad. One of his few clear memories of Mary Winchester was her making pancakes on Saturday mornings—chocolate chip with whip cream if she was in a particularly generous mood—and he missed having that with someone. And sure, Cas wouldn’t eat the pancakes, but he’d sit at the table and hold a mug of fragrant coffee while they chatted about whatever. Yeah, it was definitely nice.

They talked about their respective plans for the day while the food cooked, which Dean guessed weren’t so respective when they couldn’t be apart for more than a half hour. So far, their schedule included breakfast, cartoons (oh yeah, he was serious about that), checking the library and archives for any resources on angels that may have been mis-shelved, and a trip out for much-needed food supplies. Dean wracked his brain for anything else they’d need to keep themselves entertained for the next few weeks until they had figured out the limits of the bond or found a way to nullify it.

“A TV!” Dean exclaimed as Sam wandered into the kitchen. The last of the pancakes were coming off the griddle, and Cas had poured two mugs of coffee. He didn’t need the caffeine, and his taster didn’t work like a human’s, but he said the flavor was so strong he could almost taste it over the taste of atoms, and he liked holding the warm mug.

“A TV what?” asked Sam, pouring his own cup of joe.

“I’m gonna buy a TV today. I’m tired of crowding around a laptop to watch movies, and if Cas an’ I are stuck here for a while, I’m gonna need some quality entertainment. Can you imagine watching Furiosa stalking across the desert in 1080p HD? So hot.”

Both of the others looked at him in confusion, but neither asked him to explain, knowing too well where that rabbit hole could go.

“Okay. Be sure to pick up–”

“We have a list,” Cas said, proudly brandishing the sheet of paper he’d just finished writing on. “Add anything not already on there.”

Sam took the paper and raised an eyebrow. “How domestic of you.”

“I always make it all the way home only to realize I forgot toothpaste,” Dean muttered defensively. “Cas thought a list might help.”

“Do you need toothpaste, Dean?” Cas asked.

“Not this time … Anyway, grab a plate, Sammy. It’s time for pancakes and Saturday morning cartoons.”

“It’s not Sat–”

“Streaming. You know better, Samuel.”

Sam rolled his eyes, but grabbed a plate, a few pancakes, and his coffee. “You do realize it’s almost noon, right?”

“Holy shit, really?” Dean went for his phone before realizing it was still in the bedroom, so he looked at Cas wordlessly asking for both the time and an explanation for the late start.

“It’s currently eleven twenty-three. I didn’t wake you up because you looked like you could use it, and who knows what physical toll this bond is taking on you,” Cas explained, and he sounded sad. Dean hated that tone.

“Well, it is our snow day, so I’ll allow it.”

“It’s not snowing,” Sam said, confused.

“But we could get a light dusting,” Dean shot back. “Grab the coffee pot, Cas, and come on. It’s cartoon time.”

They settled around a laptop in the library, Dean and Sam trying not to drip syrup all over themselves. Yeah, they definitely needed a TV. A big one. With comfy furniture to sit on. There was a mostly empty room they could put it in, and there were bound to be chairs or couches hanging out somewhere in the building that were comfier than the wooden library ones, which were fine for you keeping you awake while researching, but weren’t great for lounging and TV watching.

Dean was about to start up Netflix when Cas hummed in surprise. The brothers looked over at him.

“My taste buds seem to be interacting with the world the same way my temperature receptors are. I can … actually taste the coffee now.” He frowned at the mug. “I don’t think I like it. It tastes nothing like it smells.” He set the mug on the table and pushed it away, still frowning. “Why are there so many Starbucks if that’s how coffee tastes?”

Dean and Sam laughed.

“It’s a bit of an acquired taste, man.” Dean stood up and patted Cas on the arm, aiming for the bare skin of his lower arm, since it had been a few minutes since they’d touched. The ants under his skin calmed. “I think I can help. Be right back.”

He jogged to the kitchen, grabbed the sugar, and looked for the milk, only to remember he’d used the last of it on the pancakes. Frowning at the powdered creamer that was God knows how old, he had a flash of brilliance and dug out a packet of cocoa mix he’d bought last week. Sugar, milk, chocolate, and tiny marshmallows should help with the bitter coffee flavor. Then he decided, fuck it, and dug out two more packets, then headed back to the library.

Sam was trying to explain Scooby Doo to a confused Cas when Dean returned, waving the packets triumphantly. “Mochas, anyone?”

“Really? I thought you were firmly on Team Black Coffee,” Sam said, waving away a packet.

Dean shrugged, passing a packet to Cas. “It’s a snow day. Seemed like a good idea.”

He then directed Cas to dump a quarter of the mix into his coffee and stir it, then try the coffee again. Cas took a sip, and he looked at it contemplatively before dumping in the rest of the mix and stirring again. He pronounced his next sip ‘palatable,” and settled back into his chair. Dean doctored his own coffee with (much less) of the second packet, then hit play on the Netflix screen.

Scooby ran across the screen, and he settled in to watch.

***

After a few episodes of those meddling kids—during which Cas had asked about thirty-three confused questions that made Dean laugh and rib him gently—they split up. Sam headed back to the archives, where he’d already been sequestered during Dean’s sleep-in, to continue his search. Dean and Cas headed into one of the bigger nearby towns for supplies.

They started by picking up the TV Dean had been fighting for all morning. As they drove toward the grocery store after, Dean spied a second-hand store and realized they’d missed something on their list. He pulled into the parking lot and turned off the engine. Cas looked at him questioningly.

“You need clothes, bud.”

Cas frowned (sadly?) and pulled at his borrowed flannel shirt. “These I’m wearing will suit me fine. I don’t need more.”

“Yeah, well. One, I think you wear a size smaller than me, so we should get you something that fits a little better, and two, don’t you want something that’s a little more … you?”

“More me? I don’t understand.”

Dean searched for an explanation Cas could understand. “Okay, so everyone has a personality that makes them _them_ , right? Quirks and habits and flaws. Well, to us humans, clothing is an extension of our personality. It matches our likes and our lives. So a goth wears all back, elaborate clothing. Someone really perky and happy wears bright clothes. Fancy people wear fancy clothes. Joe Schmoes like me wear jeans and flannel. Get it?”

Cas thought a moment, then nodded slowly. “My clothes give strangers an indication as to who I am before they even meet me.”

“Yeah, something like that. So, you wanna go in and pick out some threads?”

“Yes, I think I’d like that.” Cas gave him a small smile, touched his wrist, and opened the car door. Dean followed.

“How do I know what clothing matches my personality?” Cas asked, looking overwhelmed at the racks of clothes in front of them. They’d wandered the store a bit before finding the men’s section and were now standing between the shirts and jeans racks.

“Oh, you know. Just whatever calls to you, I guess?”

“Calls to me?” Cas gave him the same look he’d given when Dean had explained how Shaggy and Scooby could fit sandwiches the size of their heads into their mouths in two bites.

Dean chuckled and bumped his shoulder. “Things that you think look nice and comfortable.”

“Oh, like when I picked out my pajamas last night.”

“You didn’t just grab what was on top?” Dean asked. Never having cared about clothes before, Dean assumed Cas’s own choices last night and this morning had been the first things he’d grabbed.

“I was going to, but then I saw the Fleetwood Mac t-shirt, and it reminded me of the first hunt I went with you on that wasn’t related to the apocalypse. You wore the shirt the night after the hunt ended, and that night has always stuck in my memory. Then I touched it, and it was very soft, and I liked that.”

Dean remembered that hunt. A rugaru in Utah. They’d had a question on lore, and Bobby wasn’t answering, so Dean had decided to pray to Cas, asking for help. When he showed up and answered their questions, he’d had this puppy dog look on his face, and Dean had spontaneously asked if he wanted to join them. They’d been hunting together off and on ever since, and Dean had never been happier. Not only was it easier with an angel on hand, but it was just plain _fun_ , having his best friend with him.

He smiled softly at Cas now. “Yeah, like that. As for your style, hmmm … it’s hard to separate the idea of you from that damn suit you’ve been wearing, so give me a minute.” He closed his eyes and tried to picture Cas in other clothes. He pushed away the thrilling thought of Cas in his pajamas the night before. What _would_ a human Cas wear? He opened his eyes and looked around until something caught his eye. He smiled, grabbed Cas’s hand, and pulled him to a nearby rack of sweaters.

“I think you’re a sweater guy.”

Cas furrowed his brow. “Why?”

“I dunno … You’re just soft and fuzzy to me?”

“I have the appropriate amount of hair for a human.”

Dean laughed. “No, your personality. You’re comforting and warm to be around.”

Cas dropped the sweater sleeve he was feeling and looked up in surprise. “I am?”

Dean scratched his neck, feeling embarrassed. “Yeah? I mean, you’re my best friend, so I obviously feel comfortable around you. And when you’re around, I feel like everything is going to be okay, no matter what.”

Cas smiled softly. “Oh.”

He started looking through the sweaters once Dean pointed him to the right section for his size. Dean encouraged him to grab anything that he liked the look of, and then he’d try everything on and see what suited him. It was weird to Dean to think about having to try on clothes—he’d been dressing himself for so long and had stopped growing ages ago, so he was comfortable just grabbing and buying—but he figured Cas needed to see and feel the clothes to know what he wanted. They selected some t-shirts and even a few flannels, plus some jeans, then headed for the changing rooms. Dean waited outside while Cas went into a room. Dean thought he’d mojo a clothing change, but was surprised to hear rustling, like he was actually changing clothes by hand. He liked it when Cas tried to do things the human way. Cas’s love for humanity was one of the things that made him so special, and he was glad Cas was getting to experience this life, even if the situation itself was far from ideal.

Cas came out a few moments later wearing a t-shirt, flannel shirt, and jeans. It was weird seeing Cas in patterned clothes, and the green and blue of the flannel was so different from his drab suit and trench coat. It didn’t look _bad_ , but it didn’t look like Cas either. The jeans, however, looked excellent on him, fitting like a glove. Wow.

He pretended nonchalance. “Not bad. What do you think?”

“The t-shirt has itchy seams, but the flannel and jeans feel nice.”

“Okay, then. Get back in there and try on the next set.” Dean nodded to the changing room.

Next was a Henley and another pair of jeans, both of which were signed off on. The next time Cas came out of the room, Dean had to swallow hard and push down every emotion, afraid they were strong enough to bleed through the link. Cas looked perfect. He wore sapphire blue t-shirt that reflected his eyes under a fluffy dark brown cardigan that fell slightly past his hips and had two large pockets, along with the first pair of jeans. Dean wanted to bury himself in Cas, he looked so soft and comfortable. Yeah, that was Cas.

He cleared his throat. “Looks comfortable. Do you like it?”

Cas ran a hand down a sleeve. “It’s very soft. And I like the colors.”

“Well, ya look good, man. I cannot tell you how long I’ve wanted to get you out of those damn clothes.”

There was a giggle to Dean’s left, and he looked over to see a young woman with a hand over her mouth and mirth in her eyes. He felt a flush on his face.

“That sounded less dirty in my head. I just mean, you look more comfortable now that you’re not in the suit and coat. I think the brainy professor look suits you better.”

Cas looked a little pink himself, but he was smiling. “Thank you. I do like it.”

Not wanting his eyes to stray back to Cas’s body, Dean nudged him back to the changing room. “Git back in there. Let’s see what else you’ve got.”

They ended up with the cardigan, both pairs of jeans, a couple of Henleys, the blue t-shirt plus two others, another t-shirt and soft flannel pants for pajamas, the flannel shirt he’d tried on first, and a surprisingly fancy and soft cashmere sweater in a dark green. They also picked up a coat on their way to the register. Dean got a tiny little kick from spoiling Cas, but he kept that thought to himself.

Cas immediately angel changed into the cardigan combo Dean had liked so much as they headed for the grocery store. It was moving toward late afternoon and Dean was flagging a bit. Weird that he could hunt for days and be fine, but an afternoon of shopping near killed him. He was ready to be back home, in front of their new TV, and rubbing shoulders on a couch with Cas. It was a pipe dream, though, as he knew they’d be camping out in the library for the foreseeable future trying to find some answers to the bond problem. Maybe they could move a couch into the library so they could at least be comfortable while they worked.

After the grocery store, they picked up some Greek and headed back to the bunker. Sam met them at the door during the second trip inside, and he helped Dean unload the TV (not nearly large enough for Dean’s taste, but it was still far better than a laptop screen). Cas offered to zap it inside for them, but Dean waved off the help. Angel mojo was all well and good when they were fighting some hinky monster or demons, but he preferred doing things the old-fashioned way. In his line of work, he couldn’t let himself get lazy. That’d just get him killed.

While Sam unpacked dinner at the table, Dean popped a frozen pie (genius) into the oven so it’d be ready for an evening snack while they researched. He could practically taste the cinnamony apples already.

“By the way, nice threads, Cas,” Sam said, sitting down to eat. “You look very you.”

“See!” Dean said, sitting down next to Cas, who held a take-out cup of sage tea he’d picked up when they got their take-out. He wasn’t eating—still didn’t need to, thank goodness—but he was well into the habit of trying to blend in by having a drink in front of him any time he was around food. “All you need is a pair of glasses and you could be teaching a philosophy course at some fancy college.”

Cas smiled. “Thank you, Sam. Dean explained to me how clothing reflects personality, and I have to say, I feel I understand myself a little better now. It was an enlightening shopping trip. Also, it’s very soft.” He ran his hand over his cardigan again.

“Where did you go?” Sam asked after chewing and swallowing a bite of his shawarma. Dude was far too polite to be a hunter.

“Given how much of a prima donna this one is about the texture of clothes, I figured second hand was the way to go, since worn stuff tends to be softer. Went to a place we found by the grocery store.”

“Oh,” Cas said, a look of surprise on his face.

“Cas?” Dean asked, wondering what had caused it.

“It’s just … I thought you took me there because there was no need to spend money on anything new for me.” He kept his gaze on his tea, which he’d yet to drink.

“Whoa, no. Cas, where’d you get an idea like that?” Dean felt a stab of hurt that Cas thought Dean thought so little of his worth, but he supposed it made sense, considering Cas’s sense of self-worth wasn’t that much better than Dean’s. “Any money spent on you isn’t a waste. If you want to go to a fancy store and get anything else, you just let me know. Whatever you want, we’ll get it.”

Cas looked up through his lashes and smiled. “Okay. Thank you, Dean.”

Uncomfortable with the amount of feels he was feeling, Dean pointed to the cup. “Drink your tea, nerd.”

Cas took a sip and sighed happily. “I like tea far better than coffee.”

The brothers laughed.

Taking his own advice, Dean dug into his combo plate and groaned in food ecstasy. “Oh yeah, that hits the spot. Cas, you gotta try to this falafel. It’s amazing.”

“I don’t need to eat, though.”

Dean shrugged and held his fork out to Cas, who just looked at it curiously. “Think you should try food now that you can taste it.” He wiggled the fork a little. “Just try a bite.”

Cas rolled his eyes, but opened his mouth obediently, and Dean fed him the falafel. _Don’t think about those lips, dumbass_ , Dean berated himself as he watched Cas chew thoughtfully. He quickly stuffed another bite in his own mouth.

“Mmm.” Cas looked pleased. “There are so many flavors. It’s a bit overwhelming, but in a good way?”

Dean grinned. “We’ll have to do Indian sometime. You’ll love it. Want anymore?” He waved his fork at his plate.

Cas contemplated the spread. “Does it all taste like the falafel?”

“Well, no, because they’re all different foods. But I guess if you liked the spices, try the gyro meat.”

Cas sat and stared at him, and Dean got the hint and loaded his fork with the spiced meat and held it up for Cas to take. Why was feeding another person so intimate? And why did performing such a simple act make Dean want to explode? He didn’t let himself answer that question. Cas groaned in pleasure, and Dean stood up quickly. He had to get away from this, if only for a moment.

“I need a beer. Anyone else?”

The others both shook their heads, and Dean power walked over to the fridge. He stood for a minute with the door open, trying to cool his heated face. _Stop it, Winchester. You’ve successfully hidden your feelings for years, don’t let something as stupid as an accidental bond change that_. Which was a bit counterintuitive, seeing as how, usually, such a bond was formed so that feelings could be shared between the bondmates. Still, this bond was accidental. Which means neither of them actually wanted it, which meant they should fight it. Right? _Right?!?_ He sighed.

“Good talk, coach,” he muttered, grabbing a beer bottle and heading back to the table.

When he sat back down, Sam was explaining his findings of the afternoon as Cas sneaked another bite of Dean’s meal. Dean rolled his eyes and waved away the fork Cas sheepishly offered to him, holding up the new one he picked up on his way back to the table.

“Keep it, you filcher. I grabbed another because I _know_ you.” He mock glared at Cas, and Sam laughed. Cas bit his lip, then speared another falafel.

“If you really don’t mind …”

Dean felt his face melt into far too fond a smile. “I don’t.”

***

After dinner, Sam went back to his latest pile of research. Cas started walking to one of the archive rooms, and when Dean didn’t follow, he turned around to stare curiously at him.

Dean pointed down the hall. “You know I’m not so good with the book research. I’m gonna search some of the storage rooms, see if they have anything good.”

Cast stepped toward him. “Alright, let’s go.”

Dean took a step back. “Nah, you stay here. I need some space. Plus, you can do more good here.”

It hurt to see the wounded expression on Cas’s face, but Dean held strong. He really did need to get some distance if he was going to survive this. Plus, he actually did enjoy a little alone time each day to recharge. He was feeling a little worn down from the constant interaction all day. Even being around someone he lo– he enjoyed being around could get exhausting after a while.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be back before things get bad. See?” He set an alarm for twenty minutes and showed it to Cas. “And I’ll be just a few rooms down from you.”

Cas nodded slowly, then took his own step backwards. “Of course. See you soon.” He turned and headed through the archive room door. Dean watched him a moment longer, then turned around himself. Distance was good. They both needed it.

While he was searching a dusty set of shelves a few minutes later, his phone vibrated. When he saw it was a call from Bobby, he answered.

“Hey, Bobby. What’s up?”

“Sam tells me you and Cas got hitched.” Even over a cell connection, Dean could hear the exasperated humor in Bobby’s gruff tone. He calmed, hearing the man reacting exactly like he always did.

“Fuck Sam.”

Bobby chuckled. “Sounds like you’re taking it well.”

Dean sighed, and leaned against the nearest shelf, fiddling with some sort of jewelry box. It was probably cursed, and he shouldn’t touch it, but that didn’t stop him.

“Oh, you know me, always looking on the bright side of life.”

“Yeah, more like bury any feelings and pretend you’re good. But are you really good, son? This is me, you can talk to me.”

Dean rubbed a hand over his face, probably smearing dust all over but not caring. “Awww, I dunno. I mean, it could be worse? At least it’s my best friend and not someone I hate. It’s luckily not literally any other angel. But still …” he sighed. “I like the guy, right? He’s pretty cool for an angel, and he’s wicked funny when he’s not trying, but still, being stuck constantly within a 15-foot radius of anyone is not going to go over well with me, no matter how much I like ‘em. I need my space. But with this stupid bond, I can’t go more than 20 minutes without needing to get my Castiel fix, like I’m a damn addict. It’s fucking ridiculous.”

Bobby hummed. He was rarely one for long speeches, but he was great for venting to when things were getting tense. And now that Dean got going, he wanted to say it all. He might not be comfortable with spilling all of his feelings for his best friend to Bobby, but he could get at least a few off his chest.

“And what about poor Cas? Dude is way too good deserve this situation. It was mine and Sam’s fault to begin with, and then he didn’t even stuck with a _good_ human like Mother Theresa, just my dumb, broken, grumpy ass. _Not to mention_ , I’m getting all of these cool powers out of it—strength, speed, quick thinking, I think I can even smell and see better—and what’s he getting? Being super sensitive to fabric textures and the ability to taste food. What the fuck kind of exchange is that? It sucks, and I gotta find a way to get him out of this deal. What if he falls or becomes increasingly human and one day he dies? I can’t have that on me. I’ve already done so many shitty things to him, I can’t let his end be on my head. Fuck, he should’ve run ages ago.”

He leaned his head back against the shelf behind him. Well, that was a bit … much, but hell, had it felt good to get it out in the open. He’d shared bits of it with Cas, of course, but Cas was always so accommodating and careful. Bobby at least could understand where Dean was coming from.

“You’re an idjit, boy.”

Dean straightened in surprise. “What?”

“That angel couldn’t have bonded with anyone but you. He’s been following you around like a puppy since the Lucifer ordeal. Hell, he built you from the soul up and marked you with his own handprint. You two already have a bond deeper than any two humans have, and most certainly more than any angel and human. I have a feeling that if you asked him, Cas would tell you that the ritual wouldn’t have even worked if there wasn’t some measure of compatibility between the two of you.”

“No, it was just a ritual, we said the words, burned the incense, that’s all. It would’ve worked on anyone.”

“Mmmhhmm,” Bobby hummed skeptically.

“So, what are you saying? That we should just keep the bond, since we’re ‘made for each other’? That we shouldn’t even try to find a way to break it? I can’t do that to him, Bobby. He’d be stuck with me for the rest of my life. And that’s not even getting into the supposed romantic effects that we might not know about. This is basically a marriage contract, and Cas said only angels who truly want to be together forever even attempt it. What if there’s another angel he’s meant to actually bond with? I’d be depriving him of that.”

“And you?”

Dean’s heart thumped hard. “What do you mean?”

Bobby sighed, and Dean knew he’d be taking off his cap to scratch his head. “Look, if you wanna keep certain things to yourself, you’re allowed. But you hafta know Sam and I will support you no matter what. We love you, idjit that you are.”

“I don’t–”

“I’m just sayin’, talk things out with your angel before you go trying to break something he might not want broken.”

As if conjured from their talk, Cas appeared in the door to the storage room. His concerned face morphed to understanding when he saw Dean was on the phone. Dean nodded at him and held up a finger.

“Look, Bobby. Thanks for calling, really. I gotta get going. Did you find anything in your library?”

“Maybe. But I’ll call your brother to tell him about it. But really, Dean, I know you hate it, but _talk_. Share your feelings. Don’t pretend to know what’s best for Castiel. Ask him what he wants, okay?”

“Yeah, alright. Sure. I’ll let you call Sam now. Thanks for checking in.”

“Of course. Talk to you later.”

Dean signed off and looked at his phone, where he could see his timer had gone off without him noticing. That explained Cas’s presence. He waved his angel over. Cas walked up to him, touching his hand to Dean’s bare arm, and Dean felt the immediate relief of the connection. The ill effects built up slowly enough, and he’d been distracted enough by the phone call that he hadn’t really noticed the nausea and shakiness. And he could feel where a headache was starting to build, now that he thought about it. All of that went away after they touched, though. He hadn’t realized how many thoughtless touches they must’ve had throughout the day, because this was the first time he’d felt the nausea since the night before.

For once though, even with the relief, that one small point of contact wasn’t enough. He wanted to bodily curl up into Cas’s comforting presence. He wanted to put his arms around him, bury his head in Cas’s neck, and breathe him in slowly. He wasn’t sure if that was the bond talking, or his own feelings, and he was too scared to do the soul searching it’d take to find the answer. He’d been pushing it away for so long now, it was almost automatic at that point. So he pushed it away again, though he allowed the one small touch to continue. He breathed easier when he could feel Cas’s warmth.

“Everything okay?” Cas asked softly.

“Yeah, ‘course. Just Bobby mother henning, like he does. Even if we quit hunting today, he’d find a way to worry about cancer or lightning strikes or something else just as unlikely to hurt us.” Dean opened a cardboard box with his free hand and peeked inside. It looked like a hand of glory, so he grimaced and closed the box again. “Any luck in the archives?”

Cas shrugged. “Not really. Though there are a few books that sound interesting for my own edification. I put them in our– I- I mean _your_ room to read tonight.”

Dean felt a little thrill in his stomach when Cas used the word _our_ , even though he backtracked on it. He said it without thought, like it was so easy to think of something jointly belonging to them. It was nice. Taking at least a tiny hint of Bobby’s advice, he talked.

“It’s okay, it _is_ our room, after all. At least until we can be out of each other’s sight for longer than fifteen minutes at a time.”

“I don’t want to intrude …” Cas began slowly.

Dean turned to face him full on. Dear God, what did Cas think he was, some ogre? Then a few recent memories flitted across his mind—him asking for space, being stubborn and staying away until they literally collapsed—they’d cleared up the second-hand store thing, but before then Cas had believed Dean didn’t care enough about him to pay for new clothes. Maybe Dean _was_ acting like an ogre. What Cas didn’t know was that Dean’s actions were only in an effort to protect his own fragile feelings. But in doing so, he’d hurt Cas. He really was a shitty bondmate. He’d need to find a way to make Cas feel appreciated, even if it broke his own heart. They were best friends who just happened to now have a bit of a codependence problem. He needed to start acting like he cared. Not that it was an act …

“No, Cas, not at all. Look, I know my actions so far haven’t been particularly welcoming. But you know me, I don’t handle change well, and I feel really bad that we’ve saddled you with this problem. I’m trying to adjust, but as Bobby let me know, I’m being an idiot to you in the process. I keep thinking I know what you want, but we haven’t really talked about this. What do _you_ want?”

Cas fidgeted with the hem of his cardigan with his free hand, looking down at the floor. “I want you to be happy, Dean. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

Dean huffed out a laugh. “Yeah, well we’re buttin’ heads then, because I want _you_ to be happy. So, besides me being happy, what do you want? Do you want to go back to Heaven?”

“No!” Seemingly surprised by his own intensity, Cas paused, then tried again. “I don’t fit in Heaven anymore. I’m not sure I ever did. I played the obedient son and soldier, but something always felt like it was missing. It wasn’t until I came to Earth that I began to understand. We angels were made to love and revere humanity, and somewhere in Heaven’s single-mindedness to defeat Hell, we forgot that. I love humanity and Earth, and I think I belong here now. I probably always did.”

“Okay, good, we’re getting somewhere now.” Dean squeeze Cas’s hand. “So, staying on Earth. Do you want to travel? See the world and humanity?”

Cas shrugged. “Maybe? It’s been interesting seeing the different regions of the U.S. while hunting with you. This country is so varied and fascinating.”

“Do you want to see more outside of here, though?”

“I don’t know …”

“Okay, we’ll come back to that, then. What else do you want? Do you want to own a house? Set up a bookstore? Walk dogs?”

“No.” Cas shook his head. “I like hunting. With you. I like helping people and seeing you shine when you’re able to save a life. I like watching you and Sam bicker. I like your car … and seeing the world speed by from her windows. I like talking to waitresses at truck stops and hearing their stories. I like …” He petered off. “I like my life now, I think.”

It was suddenly hard to breathe. The things Cas listed, they were the things Dean loved too. He and Sam (and their father) had been hunting together for so long, that he really didn’t question Sam staying on with him, when there was so much work to do. But a part of Dean still saw Sam eventually settling down with a family and having some sense of normalcy. And that made Dean feel alone, because he knew he was not destined for that life. He’d hunt until the day he died. And yeah, a part of him wanted the whole family thing too—he thought back fondly to Lisa and Ben—but truthfully, that life wasn’t for him. He needed the chase, the thrill of the hunt, the relief at saving another person from things that went bump in the night. But maybe, just maybe … he could have a little of both with Cas. At least a platonic version of it. But could he do that? Be with Cas while not really _being_ with Cas the way he wanted to? For _years_? Decades?

And wasn’t that a wild thought, having decades of life left. For so long now, especially since the crossroads deal, he’d lived life a day at a time, not expecting to see the end of the year, and then was pleasantly surprised when he added another candle to his theoretical birthday cake. But with the protection of the bond, he might actually live to see old age.

“It’s not so bad a life, is it?” Dean finally said, and he liked the smile he got in return.

“No, it really isn’t.”

“Okay then. I think I can provide you with hunting, seeing more of humanity, and plenty of bickering between me and Sammy, so if that’s really what you want …” It was hard to believe, but he wouldn’t fight it, seeing as he wanted Cas to stay too.

“I really do want that, Dean.”

“Well then. I do suggest we keep researching the bond, though, just to make sure it won’t hurt you in some unknown way, but I guess we can concentrate on that, rather than on trying to break it?”

Cas beamed at him. Fuck, that look would be the death of him, for sure. Of course, seeing that smile made Dean want to do more to earn that look again.

“I think I saw some spare bookshelves in the next room. Wanna help me move one into our bedroom?” The use of _our_ was just as thrilling when he said as when Cas had done so.

Cas cocked his head. “Why?”

“Well, if you’re gonna be hanging out there awake every night, you should have somewhere to keep the books you like the best. You’ll probably run out of space on the built-in shelf pretty quick. Do you want a bigger desk? The one in there is kinda small, but I’ve seen some bigger ones somewhere. Is the couch comfortable enough for you, when you don’t want to sit on the bed? We can look for softer chair, if you prefer.” Dean pulled his bondmate to the door, trying to remember where he’d seen the fancy desks. “Do you need a set of drawers for your new clothes?”

“Ah …”

Dean turned to look back at Cas, whose face was set to stunned.

“What? Oh, am I presuming too much? I just wanted …” Shit, had he fucked things up already? Wouldn’t be surprising. Even when he tried to do the right thing, he did it wrong.

“No, no. It’s- it’s good. It’s just … you really want me around? I thought after you came to hide in here, that it meant you’d prefer to be alone all the time.”

Dean really was a damn ogre, wasn’t he? “I really do want you around. When I say I need some space, I mean just for a little while. I’ve always been like this. I learned to find little hideaways when me and Sammy were cooped up in a single motel room, waiting for Dad to come back from a hunt. Sometimes I can be a little bit of an introvert, ya know? I just need some peace and quiet to recharge for a minute. It’s not about you at all. Promise. So, what do you say we go on a bookshelf hunt, huh? And then maybe you can help me search the storage rooms to make sure there are no angel books layin’ around?”

“Okay.” Cas’s smile was shy, and Dean kinda liked it a lot.

“Everything okay with you two?”

His automatic defense system in place, Dean dropped Cas’s hand like it was a hot brick as soon as he saw Sam come around the corner. And by the time he realized how Cas might take the move—that’d he’d think Dean was ashamed of touching him—it was too late to grab it again. Shit. _Thank you, John Winchester, for your A-plus parenting_ , he thought bitterly.

“Yeah, just trying to remember where some empty bookshelves are. Thought Cas could use one in our room to put his personal books on and class up the joint.” There, that would help, right? He was calling it their room and showing that he wanted Cas to be comfortable there. He looked over at his angel to find that he was frowning. Maybe not as good a save as Dean expected then …

Before he could try something else, his phone vibrated. The timer he’d set for the pie was going off. “Oh, I gotta go get the pie out of the oven. I’ll be right back.” He nudged Cas’s hand with his own before heading down the hall. “I think I saw the bookshelves in the next room, if y’all want to go look for them.”

By the time he’d pulled out the pie—smelling amazing, if he did say so himself—and set it on the counter to cool, Sam and Cas had found the empty shelves: tall, real wood shelves, sturdy and with a nice stain on them. They really didn’t make things like they used to. These days they’d have to hunt high and low and pay out the nose for quality like that. Quality was heavy though, and they needed all three of them to transfer the chosen shelf from storage to the bedroom.

Sam left to go hunt for the fancy desks Dean knew he’d seen somewhere, while Dean made sure the placement suited Cas. Cas started to transfer the books on his bedside table to the shelf, but Dean stopped him. “They’re all dusty,” he explained before digging through his drawers for a ratty old shirt to use as a dust cloth.

“Clean off the dust with this,” he said, handing it over.

Cas pursed his lips for a moment before patting Dean’s nose with it.

Dean went cross-eyed trying to figure out what he was doing.

“You said to clean off the dust.”

Dean’s hand flew to his nose. “Why didn’t you say anything earlier?”

“It was … endearingly human,” Cas explained with a smirk before turning to dust off the shelf.

He’d just finished when Sam poked his head back in. “Guys? I found the desk, but I’m not sure we can move it ourselves. It’s, like, twice as heavy as the shelves.”

Moments later, the three of them stood around the desk, trying to decide how to get it moved through the narrow doorways of the bunker.

Dean hummed. “Cas, I think this is all on you, dude. Can you,” he wiggled his fingers in the air, “miracle it into the room?”

Cas’s shoulders slumped in relief. “Thank you. Yes.” With a wave of his hand and a tingle in Dean’s brain, the big desk disappeared and was replaced by the smaller one that had been in the bedroom.

After that, Sam split off to go back to the library as they walked through the halls back to their room. “I’ll leave you guys to finish rearranging your room. I’m going to get back to researching.”

“Sure, Sammy. Oh,” Dean snapped his fingers. “Change in plan. Focus on effects of the bond, rather than trying to break it.”

Sam’s eyebrows went up, but he smiled. “Yeah, okay.” He waved toward the bedrooms. “Good luck with the feng shui project.”

“If you want another set of drawers, we might need you to zap them in the room, since we lost the pack mule,” Dean told Cas as they reached the room.

“No, I think I’m okay. I only have a few things, and I’ve got room on the shelf above the bed if you’d rather have the dresser to yourself.”

“Nah, I think I’ve got enough room for your two pairs of fuzzy socks and three items of clothing,” Dean replied sarcastically. The dude was a really easy roommate to have. “You want me to put your books on the shelves while you do your clothes?”

Cas debated but shook his head. “Not yet. I’ll read them tonight, then put them away.”

“Then find more tomorrow, right?” Dean teased.

“Well, you did make us lug a huge shelf in here. I should do it the courtesy of filling it up,” Cas teased right back.

Dean laughed. “Yeah, you definitely should.

***

It was so easy to fall into a routine with Cas that it took a while for Dean to notice they’d done so. Though when he thought about it, so much with Cas was easy now that he’d stopped fighting it. Waking up next to him, hands locked together, was easy. Chatting lazily at the breakfast table was easy. Working their way through the storage rooms—now more of a treasure hunt to discover the secrets of their new home rather than with any effort to find something to fix their little problem—was easy. Doing research was easy, especially now that they’d moved a loveseat into the library to relax on while they read. They both took to wearing short-sleeved shirts, or their long-sleeved ones rolled up, so that they could stay in close contact. They set up a mancave (the others vetoed Dean’s suggestion of Deancave) with their new TV, a bar, and comfy furniture—those storage rooms were a treasure trove for more than weird, creepy objects—and had worked their way through _Lord of the Rings_ (extended editions, of course), the _Alien_ and _Predator_ series, and _Star Wars_ in quick succession. Dean was even trying his hand at baking, and subjecting Sam and Cas to his results, over Cas’s protestations that he didn’t need to eat, and that he definitely didn’t deserve to be subjected to the charcoal brick Dean called his first loaf of bread.

For the first time since he was four years old, Dean finally felt like he had a place to call home. There’d been Bobby’s place, but they’d visited only rarely, so that wasn’t quite it. But the bunker, it was his. No, it was _theirs_ —his and Cas’s and Sam’s. He had a real bedroom with a mattress that remembered him and a kitchen he loved and a mancave like normal guys had. He had a favorite reading nook in the library and a favorite showerhead in the bathroom. He recognized the weird smell of the third storage room and that one light in the hallway that always flickered after midnight. He could walk from the bedroom to the kitchen in his sleep. He woke up every day at precisely eight oh three because that was when Cas slide out of bed to go start the coffee. This place, in just a couple of months, had become home. And the day that Cas called it home, too, made it even better.

He’d be trying to do better to show Cas that he wanted him there. The movie nights and the cooking and all of their routines, they were a comfort to him, but his first thought had been to provide a place for Cas and Sam to feel safe and happy in.

A few weeks into their new life, Dean and Cas were sitting in their reading nook in the library, the one with the loveseat, absentmindedly checking out some boxes from the archives. Sam was on a new kick to check that everything was catalogued correctly, and they were supposedly helping, but were instead mostly goofing off. Well, Dean was goofing off. Cas was working.

“Twenty-two seconds!” Dean crowed, cheering his own prowess of balancing a knife on his finger.

“Clearly, you are the greatest sportsman who ever lived,” Cas intoned, making notes on catalogue cards.

“You bet your ass I am. And now, I’m going to go be the greatest chef who ever lived and start on dinner.” He stood and stretched.

“With Sam out, there’s no need to cook anything, as I don’t need it.”

“I see how it is.” Dean put a mock-offended hand on his chest. “I cook and clean for you, and you don’t even appreciate me trying to make this house a home.” He wiped away a fake tear.

Cas stood and took Dean’s hands into his own, all sincerity and seriousness. “Dean, I have never felt more at home than I do here with you and Sam. Truly. I worried when I first learned of the permanence of the bond, because I thought you didn’t want me here. I thought I’d be in the way, or just an afterthought to your own life. But you have done so much to make me feel included in your lives and your home. Don’t ever think I don’t appreciate it.”

Dean untangled one of their clasped hands to rub self-consciously at his neck. “I mean, I was kinda joking there. But, wow, I didn’t know you felt like that. You think I’m doing good? Because sometimes I feel like I’m doin’ it all wrong. I haven’t had a home since I was, like, four. I’m pretty clueless on how it all works. And I can’t manage to talk Sam into really moving in. Have you seen his bedroom? It’s practically as bare as the guest rooms.”

Cas squeezed his hand. “You’re naturally a caretaker, Dean. Any time you want those around you to be happy, you’re doing it right. And that’s what you’ve done here. Sam will come around. He just needs time. But at least in my case, for the first time in my four hundred million years of life, I feel like I have a real home, so much more than Heaven ever was.”

Dean smiled. “Good. I feel like it’s a real home too.”


	2. Part II: Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The bunker gets a few new faces

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is some canon divergence for Claire’s life following her first experience with Cas and the Winchesters. I cobbled together some of her canon backstory with a health dose of my own ideas to fit this story. Same goes for Charlie and Kevin. Without leviathan and angel tablets, neither of these characters should be part of the storyline, but Dean needed a family, and I didn’t want to create OCs. Just go along with the handwavy-ness.
> 
> Also, holy shit, there is so much healthy talking in this section. I wanted them to have better lives than the show gave them. Sorrynotsorry
> 
> Also also. Remember this is around S8, so Chuck is still just a prophet.

The bond continued to develop and change. Dean’s hearing and sight got even better, and Cas burst into tears watching the end of _Return of the King_ , which meant he was subject to the whims of human emotions now more than ever. On top of their individual changes, the link between them strengthened. They could feel more of each other’s emotions now, though it was still vague enough to allow some measure of privacy, and they could even send whole thoughts if they focused, though it was far from precise. And while it seemed that Cas was still getting the raw end of the deal—being saddled with a human, and more specifically, being saddled with Dean, who felt he had even less to offer than the average human—he seemed okay with it.

Still, every once in a while, Dean would look over at his friend and see a sad expression resting on his face. Cas always smiled when he realized Dean was looking, but the expression was still there sometimes, when he thought no one was looking. Dean wanted to ask what it was for, but despite how good it had felt to share his feelings with Cas after the call with Bobby, and again when they talked about the bunker being home, he was afraid of what Cas would say. He could have changed his mind and decided he didn’t want to be stuck with Dean for the next forty years or so after all.

Even if he could muster up the balls to say something, all thoughts on Cas’s feelings were put on hold when the angel finally allowed them to go out on their first hunt since being bonded. It promised to be an easy salt and burn, but it was good to get out of the bunker and into some action. They’d been testing the limits of the bond, but this would be their first chance to see how well it worked while doing their job.

If the results of this first hunt were anything to go by, they were good to start hunting again full time. Dean wondered if that was just an easy ghost, or if the hunt went far easier with the bond. Sam had practically stood back and watch during the actual fight, Dean and Cas working together like a well-oiled machine. And so they slipped back into their regular hunter lives. With Cas and Dean needing to be together for the bond, many easier hunts ended up being just the two of them, with Sam staying home and doing whatever he did with his big brain when he was alone. He took on a few easy hunts of his own but often seemed content to stay at the bunker when not needed out in the field.

A few months after their first post-bond hunt, they came home to find that Sam had been busy setting the place up as another hunter hub like Bobby’s. He answered phone calls to corroborate hunters’ backstories, did research, and occasionally offered up one of the many spare rooms when a hunter friend was passing through the area. Bobby started dropping by from time to time, as did Garth, when they wanted to confer with Sam over this amulet or that cursed knife or when they were passing through on a hunt, and soon enough, it didn’t feel weird to come back from a hunt to find a guest hanging out.

One day, Dean answered the bunker door expecting another grizzled hunter needing a place to stay, only to find a teenaged girl on the steps. She looked a little familiar, with her long blonde hair and blue eyes, but Dean couldn’t place her until she asked for Castiel.

He squinted down at her—though not nearly so far down as he’d had to last time he’d seen her. She had to be in her mid-teens now. “Claire?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Hello, Dean,” and she sounded so much like Cas in that moment that Dean’s breath caught.

“What are you doing here?” He looked out the door. “Where’s your mom?”

“Gone. Maybe dead.” She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I haven’t seen her in years.”

“ _What_?!?” Dean grabbed her arm as she tried to brush past him and into the bunker. “What are you doing here? How did you find us? What do you mean, she’s gone?”

She leveled him with a stern stare. “Look, I don’t want to tell this story twice. Is Castiel here? I hear he’s been bunking here these days.”

“How did you hear that?” It should’ve only been a few trusted hunters who knew their actual location.

“Calm down. I’ll explain everything in a minute.” She rolled her eyes, yanked her arm free, and went to stand at the balcony rail to look down on the map room below.

“Dean? What happened? You feel upset,” Cas called from a hall leading into the room. As soon as he came through the door and looked up, he froze, obviously recognizing Claire immediately, despite her having changed a lot in the years since he’d last seen her.

He met Dean’s eyes in alarm, and Dean shrugged, letting his confusion trickle into their bond to show he was just as surprised as Cas was. They were so used to the bond by then that it barely took half a thought to have a subliminal conversation on Claire’s sudden appearance. Cas had no clue Claire was looking for him, and he was just as baffled as to where her mom could be. They decided to sit her down and figure out what was going on. All of this was decided in a matter of seconds, and with nary a word spoken. Cas went to find Sam.

“Umm, okay?” Claire said, clearly a little miffed that Cas had barely glanced at her.

“He’s going to get my brother. Let’s get settled down at the table.” Dean tried to take her duffle, but she yanked it back and hauled it over her shoulder and made her way down the stairs, Dean following with an eyeroll. She was obviously in that independent teen phase he remembered Sam going through. He sent a mental note for Cas to gird his loins and get ready for some major ‘tude.

By the time they got settled—Claire dropping her duffel on the chair next to her but not letting go, and Dean sitting across from her so he and Cas could face her head on—Cas returned with Sam. Sam settled at the head of the table between Claire and Dean, and Cas of course took the seat next to Dean. He fumbled under the table and grabbed Dean’s hand, slotting their fingers together. It had been about ten minutes since they’d last touched, and the connection calmed Dean.

When he let himself really dwell on it, he still felt a little off kilter at the blurry line they walked between platonic and romantic. They held hands and sometimes even cuddled as Dean slept (though he’d never admit that to anyone), and they now talked a lot more than they ever had, but otherwise they were the same platonic friends they’d always been, hidden pining from Dean notwithstanding. And for the most part, he was happy with their new normal. But every once in a while, longing twined up his spine, and he wanted nothing more than to bury himself in Cas’s neck, to kiss his cheek when he was being especially adorable, to shout to the world that he was Cas’s and Cas was his. But they weren’t like that, even though because of the bond, they kinda were. As happy as he was with their life, it still kinda sucked.

Dean settled back into his chair and took a deep breath, enjoying the feel of the link humming strong between them. Cas tilted his head a bit and smiled at him, and Dean smiled back. Yeah, for the most part, it was pretty good, and he shouldn’t complain, even to himself. He looked across the table and met Claire’s gaze.

She settled back in her own chair, crossed her legs, and transferred her gaze to Cas, who met her stare head on.

“Claire,” Cas said, opening the conversation by putting the ball in her court.

“Still not my dad, huh?” she asked, and if this fact upset her, she did a good job hiding it. She had that same bored face every teenager since the beginning of time wore when talking to adults.

Cas inclined his head in a brief nod. “I am sorry to say so, but yes. Dean said your mother is missing?”

She frowned and looked between them. “When did he say that?”

“We’ll tell you later,” Dean said, throwing her own words back at her. “You first, as promised.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, okay. Mom left a year after we last saw you guys. I think she was searching for Touched By an Angel here,” she nodded her head at Cas, “but her postcards were pretty vague, so that could’ve just been an excuse to avoid being around me.” After blank looks from the three adults, she continued. “I reminded her too much of Dad and what had happened. She couldn’t stand to look at me the last few months she was home. Left me with my grandmother, but when Grammy died, I got shuttled off to foster homes. That’s when the postcards stopped, of course. Not that there had been many to begin with.

“So yeah, I got moved from shitty foster home to shitty foster home. When the group home I was in got attacked by vampires and I managed to escape, I used the chance to go off the grid and get out of the system. I’ve been hunting since then.” She shrugged and crossed her arms. “Your turn.”

“Wait, hold it, Buffy,” said Dean, raising his free hand. “You can’t hunt. You’re like fourteen.”

“I’m fifteen, Giles,” Claire shot back. “And I’ve been doing well enough, no thanks to any of you.”

Cas squeezed his hand when he opened his mouth again, and he shut it. Claire was sort of Cas’s responsibility after all. He didn’t need Dean butting in.

“Claire, I’m so sorry to hear that I’ve caused you so much pain in the last few years. I never meant for any of this to happen, truly.”

Claire sighed and slumped back. “I was really fucking mad at you for years, you know. Taking my dad from me, causing my mom to leave me.” She laughed bitterly. “I’d even convinced myself that Grammy’s death was your fault somehow. And it didn’t hurt that you were a complete dick the first time I met you.”

“But?” Cas asked quietly.

She stared at him for a minute. “One night I dreamed about the night I became your vessel, and it reminded me that Dad made the choice, even if his hand was forced a little. But yeah, it was his shitty decision that put me where I was, not you. I mean, I still kinda want to punch you, but after that dream, I decided to find you.”

“Why?”

Claire frowned. “I wish I knew. Closure? To show you that I’d done something with my shitty lot in life? Maybe to thank you. Anyway, there were rumblings in the hunter community about the infamous Winchesters, so it wasn’t hard to get some info on them, although a lot of it was rumor. And your name cropped up a lot with Dean’s.” She raised her eyebrows at Cas, then looked pointedly at the lack of space between him and Dean. A choked-off snicker came from Sam’s quiet end of the table. Dean rolled his eyes at him.

For once, it wasn’t Dean who shifted uncomfortably at the mention of their nebulous relationship, but Cas. He cleared his throat but kept hold of Dean’s hand under the table.

“Ah, yes. Heaven isn’t particularly happy with me these days, and I find more fulfilment in helping humans here on Earth. As a hunter yourself, I’m sure you understand that drive.”

Dean stifled a laugh at the angle Cas was going for with Claire, but he had to admit it was probably a smart one. She was fierce to prove she could go it alone, but she’d come here for a reason. If showing his respect for her life choices made it easier to keep an eye on her, he’d do well to keep it up. Dean thought he understood why she’d shown up, though. He remembered being a teenaged hunter, hungry for his dad’s approval. With Claire’s mother and grandmother gone, Cas was the closest she had to a parent. He hoped Cas would be able to talk her into settling down into a normal life, though. She was too young to be a part of this world. Maybe Jody could take her in, which would allow Cas to keep an eye on her and allow her to learn hunting from Jody, but would still keep her safer than if she was out on the road alone.

Claire shrugged at Cas’s words. Were her only expressions shrug, smirk, and eyeroll? Well, she was a teenager, so probably.

Dean nudged a reminder of the time to Cas, who picked up on the hint immediately. The bond was dead handy at times. Okay, most of the time.

“We were about to sit down for dinner. Are you hungry?” he asked. If they could get her to stay a few days, they might have more success persuading her to stop hunting and settle down.

“If not, we’ve got lots of guest rooms to choose from,” Dean added, dropping Cas’s hand and standing up. “But I made my famous chili, so you really don’t want to miss out.”

“Dean, you’ve made it once before. You can’t call it famous.” Sam sent him bitchface. It might be best to keep him and Claire apart, for fear she’d learn new annoying facial expressions.

“Hey, it was so good the first time, it made it to number one on the billboard charts.”

“I’d say it’s closer to number forty,” Sam confided to Claire. “Don’t feel you have to feed his ego if you’re not hungry.”

Claire looked around at them all with wide eyes, as if she couldn’t believe they were real. And given she’d been shunted from heartbroken mother to elderly grandmother to shitty foster homes to a solitary hunter life, they probably did seem pretty unbelievable. Hell, they were probably pretty weird no matter who was looking at them. But they were family, and Dean was pretty content with that idea, no matter how odd they seemed to others.

“Whatever. If you want food, follow me. If you’d rather hole up in a room and ignore us, Cas can show you where to go.” He headed for the kitchen to check on the cornbread. It should be just about ready.

***

Claire joined them for dinner, but she stayed quiet for the most part. She answered a few more questions about her mom and her life since she’d last seen them, but she kept pretty silent on her hunting, except to insist she was one hundred percent badass and doing perfectly fine on her own. Dean did not miss his own teenaged hubris. It had got him into a fair amount of trouble, and he imagined it was much the same for Claire.

After they realized she wasn’t going to say more, they devolved into their usual mealtime talk when the three of them were at home. They talked about possible cases, hunter chatter (and Dean suspected Claire had been using an alias, since she was on none of their radars before she showed up literally on their doorstep an hour before), and Bobby’s plans to come visit to show Sam a knife he’d recently found and needed to do research on. Then they decided what movie to watch after dinner, while Claire watched on in stunned silence.

The only thing she said as they were cleaning up was that they didn’t act like any hunters she knew, or even the way they’d acted when she’d originally met them, and for a moment, Dean was thrown. Had they really changed so much in the last few years? Then he realized that they changed that much just in the last few months, since the bonding ritual. They’d been forced to change how they lived and what choices they made, Dean especially. He couldn’t rush headlong into danger now that he had a bondmate to think of. They still weren’t sure what would happen if he died or, worse, if Cas got stabbed by an angel blade, and he wasn’t eager to find out. Luckily, Heaven seemed to be giving them a wide berth these days. And even though Cas and Dean (and occasionally Sam) still hunted, they took fewer cases, what with Sam’s growing network of hunters across the country who could take the jobs far from home, when they did cross the country for a job, it was usually because Cas wanted to go see the region it was in. Damn, they really were becoming boring.

Which they proved by settling in for a documentary on bees (it was Cas’s turn to choose) that evening. Claire wandered off to her room and a shower, and she only poked her head into the mancave once to let them know they were almost out of soap in the shower room, though she lingered long enough for another pointed look at the lack of space between Dean and Cas, which they both ignored until she left again. They shared a glance and a mental nudge through the link, but then Dean let out a laugh and soon Cas joined him.

When they’d finished their laughing fit, Sam said, “You two are ridiculous, and I don’t blame her one bit for not wanting to be around you.”

“Shut up, Sam,” they said together, and then went back to watching the documentary.

***

“Do you think we can get her to stay a while?” Cas asked later as they lay in bed.

He still spent the night awake reading or on the internet, but he’d gotten into the habit of lying down to chat until Dean fell asleep. It had been difficult for Dean at first, allowing himself to touch Cas in a less than platonic way (well, more than the hand holding they already did), afraid the close contact would put thoughts into his head that ended up with him accidentally cuddling Cas in his sleep and popping a boner he couldn’t hide.

But after a particularly difficult hunt that ended with Dean being held at knifepoint until Cas was able to pop in and gank the son of a bitch, as they lay in bed, Cas had rolled over and put his arms around Dean. Though surprised, Dean had reveled in the closeness, and so he’d let it happen as he breathed Cas in deep, something he’d wanted to do since they’d first formed the bond. He’d slept better that night than he had in ages, but it didn’t happen again for another month, when they had another harrowing hunt. The time after that, it was after they’d had a big argument, and Dean had initiated it to show how sorry he was for starting the fight. And finally, it became normal to end their day curled into each other.

That night, they talked about Claire, whose arrival had thrown them both, and they needed to figure out how best to proceed to avoid spooking her off. Dean was surprised Cas wanted her to stay. Though his vessel shared DNA with Claire, and he probably felt a certain amount of responsibility for her, given how his actions had inadvertently fucked up her life, the truth was that she wasn’t his actual child. Dean had assumed he would follow the same thought process as Dean and try to convince her to settle down with someone who could deal with her past while also stabilizing her present.

“You mean for longer than a few days,” Dean said in reply to Cas’s wondering if she’d stay. And it wasn’t a question. He could feel through their link that Cas wanted her to stay. He rubbed Cas’s back comfortingly. “We can try, if that’s what you want.”

“But would you want that?”

“I mean, it’s up to you, man,” Dean said, avoiding answering.

“No, it’s up to us, Dean.” Cas raised up enough to prop himself on his elbow.

Surprisingly, having a man (or, man-shaped being) looming over him in such an intimate position didn’t freak Dean out in the least. They’d been slowly edging toward more intimacy as their bond continued to settle anyway, so ever since they’d started _cuddling_ (God, he hated that word; cuddling was what puppies did), he’d begun to just accept whatever new aspect cropped up between them, no matter how much he’d have shied from it a mere year ago. Amazing what being magically bonded to another being did for your sense of normalcy.

“Her ties are to you, dude.”

“And _my_ ties are to you. What affects me, affects you. If you don’t want a surly teenager underfoot, we can try to talk her into going to Jody’s. But yeah, if you’re okay with having her here, I think that’s what I want. She’s not only my responsibility, but I think I _want_ her here. I feel a connection to her, and I want to see what we can do with that.”

“Wow, I guess I didn’t realize you felt that way.”

Cas furrowed his brow. “I think it stems from your own push to make this place a home and make me part of your and Sam’s family. Being a part of something is nice, and I want Claire to have that too. She deserves it.”

“Okay,” Dean said as Cas lay back down beside him and linked their hands. “If that’s what you want, it’s fine by me. Just … be careful. Don’t ask too much of yourself, or of Claire. I remember being a kid like her, and Sam too. You can’t push her, or she’ll bolt. Let her set the pace. Although I am going to make her go to the shooting range with me tomorrow. I need to make sure she can handle guns before I let her run free in the world again. Maybe have Sam check out her knife work too.”

“I’m glad I’m not the only one wanting to keep her safe.”

“You’re definitely not alone. I kinda want to cover her in bubble wrap until she’s forty.”

“I can’t believe what she’s had to deal with in the last few years. She said it was her father’s choice, and her mother’s by extension, but I can’t help but feel extremely guilty for the position my actions put her in.”

Dean slide one arm under Cas and put the other around his other side in a hug. He’d been feeling the pain Cas was in since he’d first seen Claire’s far too old eyes across the table, and he was glad he was voicing it now, so Dean could acknowledge it too. On the one hand, it was easier to actually talk about their feelings, since they felt each other’s reactions and emotions through the link. But at the same time, they sometimes ignored what they felt in the link, either because they didn’t feel it needed to be said out loud, or because they were both still kinda shit at emotions. They were working on it, though. Things like Claire’s appearance tended to push them to talk sooner than they would normally.

“Don’t feel too bad. You were a different person back then. We all were. Maybe you’re right to want her here now, to try to make things better for her. Just … don’t let yourself wallow in the guilt, ‘kay? Acknowledge the part you played, and then resolve to do better. That’s all you can do.”

Cas hummed. Following his instinct, Dean placed a soft kiss on his bondmate’s head. His hair was soft and smelled like home—like the air before it rains, old books, gun oil, and fresh baked bread. It was the first time his lips had touched Cas in any way, and he wondered why he’d been avoiding it when it felt so natural. He didn’t even question if that was just the bond talking. The bond was them, and they were the bond; it came from their needs and emotions, not from some unseen hand playing them like chess pieces. He closed his eyes and let Cas’s calming presence lull him to sleep.

***

Claire was still there when Dean shuffled into the kitchen the next morning. She and Cas were staring at each other over cups of coffee and tea, and Dean honestly wasn’t sure who would win that staring contest. Cas had angel mojo, but Claire was all teenaged stubbornness and angst. He grabbed his own mug (yeah, he had a special mug now) and poured some coffee while he watched the show.

Sam entered the kitchen not long after, and Dean waved him quiet when it looked like he was going to speak. He titled his head toward the competitors, and Sam joined him in watching the silent show.

Biology reared its ugly head eventually, though, and Claire was less practiced at ignoring her body’s needs than Cas was, even these days when he was more sensitive to human senses. She finally rolled her eyes and slumped back in her chair in a practiced “whatever” move, pretending to not be annoyed at losing. Then she noticed the two men watching her.

“I hear you make a mean pancake, Dean. Care to demonstrate?” she asked, smirking at him.

Smart girl. She was learning their weaknesses already and using them to flatter them, and to probably get whatever she was after. Despite knowing this, Dean lived to make those around him happy, so he went with it.

“Ahh, Cas has been blabbing again, huh? Well, I guess I can’t disappoint our guest, can I? Blueberry or chocolate chip?” He swiped a hand over Cas’s neck before continuing to the pantry rack for supplies. Claire made a noise in her throat. Dean turned and met her gaze for a moment before winking and turning back to breakfast preparations.

“Umm, chocolate chips?”

He shot her a thumbs up over his shoulder.

Sam sat down at the table and pulled Claire out of her quiet by talking about their library and archives, which led to a history of the Men of Letters and how the Winchesters had eventually acquired the space. He somehow made it sound dry, but Claire was interested enough, so Dean didn’t comment. Cas eventually came over to heat syrup and grab plates and silverware, and they worked around each other as seamlessly as they fought monsters.

Cas had been right the night before; it was nice feeling like you were a part of something. Dean’d had Sammy for most of his life, but this was definitely different from that, and not just because of the bond, though that certainly helped. They’d settled into friendship pretty easily, despite being such opposites (and not being the same species) and having the whole apocalypse drama going on. He was beginning to believe Bobby when he’d said the bond couldn’t have even formed without a foundational relationship to work with. He’d never gotten up the nerve to ask Cas if that was true, though. He just tried to enjoy what they did have, and not question it too hard.

Breakfast was soon made and eaten, and after cleanup, Dean went in search of their guest, who had avoided helping clean. He hadn’t been kidding when he said he wanted to see her on the shooting range. If she turned out to be bad with guns, he’d find a way to lock her up until she learned. He found her in the library, as he’d suspected.

“Busy?” he asked, watching from the door as she wandered the room, brushing hands over book spines.

“Maybe,” she replied, cocking her head in a move reminiscent of Cas. “I didn’t realize so much had been written on lore. How does the wider world not realize monsters exist?”

“Search me. Willful ignorance, I guess.” He jerked his head toward the door. “Come on, kiddo. You can drool over the books when Sam gives you a tour later. I’ve got something you can drool over with me first.”

“Fifteen, not a kiddo,” she sang under her breath, but she followed him anyway.

He led her through the maze of halls and rooms that was the bunker, eventually landing them in the shooting range. She whistled.

“I know, right? We’ve got a full gym too.” He grinned at her. “Wanna play?” At her wide-eyed nod, he walked over to the locked cupboard that served as their armory. “You can either go get your gun, or just use one of ours. We’ve got quite the selection, so I’m sure we have something to suit you.”

“Umm, one of these is fine.”

“Cool. What’s your poison?”

Claire pulled her gaze from the array of guns. “What?”

“What type of gun do you use?”

“Oh, um, whatever gets the job done. I’m not picky.”

He turned to her, brow furrowed. Granted, she was a little young, but that was not an answer he expected from a hunter.

“Go get your bag. I want to see what you travel with.”

She wilted. “Fine, you caught me. I’ve never used a gun.”

He closed his eyes and shook his head. He was partly relieved, because she’d probably never been taught proper gun safety. But on the other hand, she was apparently hunting without a gun, which was equally dangerous. He loved a good knife for hand-to-hand, but guns were great for avoiding closeup combat completely.

“You use a bow and arrow then?” he asked, trying to feel out her style. “Not a fan myself, but some hunters make it work.”

“No.” She shook her head, avoiding his eyes. “Mostly a knife, I guess.”

“And …” he prompted, knowing he was missing something.

“And … I might have exaggerated how many hunts I have under my belt.” She looked at him straight on then, apparently nothing left to hide.

He sighed. “Of course. Teenaged bravado. So, what’s your total?”

“Umm. Two.”

“Kills?”

“Hunts?”

“Oh, fuck me,” he muttered, rubbing a hand over his face.

“Pretty sure that’s Cas’s job.”

He choked on air, then pointed a finger at her. “No. One, you’re thirteen, you can’t make sex jokes. Two, that’s not- we’re not- it’s not like that for us.”

“Ohhhh.” She nodded knowingly. “Angels are asexual. Makes sense.” She wrinkled her nose. “Cas doesn’t exactly seem like a normal angel, though. His face is way more expressive than it was the first time I met him. Not to mention I was his vessel for a hot second, and he’s definitely more emotional now. But whatever. You do you, dude. Who am I to tell boyfriends how to have a relationship.”

“Ugh, he’s about a billion years old, and I’m thirty-four. We are too old to be boyfriends. Also,” he added, wanting to one-up her, “we’re best friends who … um, happen to be angel married?” Now why had he said that? She did not need to know their weird private life.

“What the fuck is ‘angel married?’”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “I’d tell you to watch your language, but I know that’d only make you worse.” He turned back to the gun cupboard. “So, guns. Since you’re a beginner, we’ll start you on this one. Low kickback, good grip. The magazines are small, but that doesn’t matter when you’re not fighting a monster.”

She looked at him closely for a moment, and with her big blue eyes, she reminded him a lot of Cas again. After half a minute, she said, “Alright, don’t tell me,” and held her hand out. He pulled the gun closer to himself instead of handing it over.

“Nuh uh. Education first, shoot after.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine, old man.”

“Hey, I’m not old enough to be your dad.”

“You’re definitely old enough. Also, you’re not-dating-but-maybe-married-to the guy using the vessel that was my dad, so …” She shrugged, then looked faintly alarmed. “Also, ew, he’s a billion years old? So, he saw, like, when Earth formed? That is the grossest age gap _ever_.”

He was offended for about two seconds, then slumped. “Believe me, I know how weird it is. Come on, let’s shoot things instead of talking about this.”

She agreed.

***

Claire stayed almost two weeks, to the surprise of everyone in the bunker, including Claire. Dean thought it was because she was enjoying actually learning how to be a hunter. If she only had two hunts under her belt, plus a few assists she’d managed with other hunters she’d bumped into, the whole idea of being a hunter was probably still overwhelming, but she seemed committed to the career, so they all vowed to teach her what they could while she would allow it.

Dean saw the signs of her itching to leave, though, so he wasn’t too surprised when she wasn’t anywhere in the bunker one morning. She had been courteous enough to leave a note, at least. The three men shared a look over the note and hoped she’d be okay. She had their phone numbers, at least, and knew how to get to the bunker. And if all else failed, she could pray to Cas for help.

***

“Got a minute?” Dean poked his head into Sam’s room a couple of days after Claire left, then came all the way in when his brother nodded.

“What’s up?” Sam asked, putting aside the book he was reading. He was on the couch, so Dean sat across from him on the bed.

“Just wanting to check in. We don’t get a lot of alone time these days.”

“Alone time? You make it sound like we’re married with three kids. Which, ew.”

“Well, _I_ am married, sorta, and we do have one kid running around; or, at least we did. Just, between me ‘n Cas always needing to be around each other, and doing a fair amount of hunting, and then with Claire here, I feel like we haven’t talked in ages. You doin’ okay?”

Sam shrugged. “Yeah, I’m fine. Busy with work.” He pointed to the book he’d been reading.

“You’re _still_ working? Come on, Sammy. It’s way past quittin’ time.”

Sam shot him a confused looked. “When has that ever applied to us? We’re hunters. We do the job, then we move on to the next one.”

“But it’s different now. We’ve got an actual home! No more being stuck in cramped motel rooms with questionable sheets and even more questionable carpets. No more spending free time driving hours to the next gig. We’ve got the mancave and a real kitchen and our own rooms now!”

“This isn’t a home, Dean. It’s where we work, same as it’s always been. Only difference is the digs are nicer.”

“Why can’t it be both? I mean, you’re here more than Cas and me are. How can you not see this as your home?”

“Because I’ve never had a home! You have happy, fuzzy memories of a real childhood and a real home, but I never had that! And the one, _single_ time I tried to have that, you dragged me back out again kicking and fucking screaming, and my _girlfriend died_. So excuse me for not wanting to try again, okay? Just …” he sighed and shrugged. “Just let me live my life how I want to.”

Dean sat there, stunned. How had he never realized how is own brother felt about this topic? He’d always assumed Sam was like him—living the hunter life while holding that secret dream of stability and safety. How could he not? But even if he’d never thought he wanted it, how could he live here in this home Dean had been working his ass off to make for them for months, and not be happy with it?

“Just … give it time,” Dean finally said. “Once you’re here for longer, you’ll see how nice this is. Maybe- You know what? You need a new mattress. That makes all the difference. Yours is hard as stone, no wonder you can’t get comfortable. I’ll get one for you next time I’m in town. You’ll love it.” Dean kept prattling on. He knew it wasn’t helping, but he couldn’t stop. There had to be something he could do or buy to change his brother’s mind.

Finally, Cas rescued him. “Dean?” he asked, coming to stand in Sam’s door. He looked concerned. Must’ve felt something through the bond.

“Hey. Just talking Sam into getting a memory foam. Tell him how great they are.”

Cas raised his eyebrows. “They’re very nice.”

Sam sighed. “Fine. Look, I should get back to this,” he said, picking up his book. “Garth needs an answer ASAP.”

“Right. Yeah. Leave you to it, then.” Dean stood and wiped sweaty hands on his jeans. Fuck. What was he going to do?

Cas grabbed his hand as he came through the door but kept silent. He always knew when Dean needed to spend some time in his own head.

***

They settled back into their pre-Claire routine, things a little more tense between the brothers, but still manageable, and the bond continued to keep Cas and Dean in close proximity. How they shared space changed though—more hugs, a couple of head kisses, and Dean had taken to slinging an arm over Cas’s shoulders when they watched TV. They were already touching enough to keep the bond happy, but the new closeness made Dean happy, and he thought, hoped, maybe Cas as well.

Despite the bond, he could never get a good read on Cas’s feelings for him. Or perhaps he was too scared to really look. It took a bit of concentration to feel out the deeper-seated emotions in each other. They could easily feel momentary spikes of surface feelings without trying, and he’d gleaned that Cas was certainly very fond of Dean, but that was to be expected of best friends. He also knew that Cas was perfectly content spending the rest of Dean’s life by his side, but they’d already talked that out months ago as well.

It was the more romantic leaning that had him walking on eggshells around what they had. Some days he reveled in their new closeness, but others he worried that they’d get close enough that he’d show his hand, and he’d learn that Cas didn’t feel the same. And the thing was, they were already kinda like an old married couple. They shared jokes and fond looks, they discussed their future together, they worried over Cas’s not-daughter, they enjoyed a fairly nice non-sex life, they bickered easily. Overall, it was way more apple pie than Dean had thought he’d ever get, so he really shouldn’t complain. And, for the most part, he didn’t. He was happy, he really was. It was just that, some days … he’d look and Cas and Cas would look at him, and he’d think about what they could be. Plus, he really missed sex. Like, a lot. But he pushed that particular longing away, guilty that maybe Cas’s one reason for not confessing his love for Dean was fear of having to turn down sex, that Claire had been right to say angels were asexual (yeah, he’d had to Google that one). So, he stifled his hopes and hid his morning wood, and just let things go on as they had been.

The hunting part of their life was going strong, at least. As Dean and Cas got better as a fighting team, Sam took on more Men of Letters roles and spent most of his time at their home base (though still not _home_ ). Sam claimed he enjoyed his new work, so Dean left him to it, afraid to poke the bear again.

It was increasingly obvious, however, that Sam needed an extra set of hands. His salvation came from unlikely corner. A kid named Kevin Tran, who they’d met on a hunt a while back, and who Cas had said was one of the living prophets in line for the position should Chuck die, showed up on their doorstep one summer afternoon.

“What are we, a halfway house for wannabe hunters?” Dean muttered, leading the wide-eyed teen down the stairs and alerting Cas to their visitor.

“I don’t want to be a hunter. Well, not exactly,” Kevin said, having heard Dean’s complaint.

“Then why are you here?”

Cas and Sam entered before Kevin could answer.

“Kevin, you remember my brother, Sam, and my um, Castiel.” Everyone politely ignored his faux pas as they exchanged handshakes and greetings.

“So, what brings a potential prophet to us?” asked Cas.

“Still potential? He hasn’t been called?” Sam asked.

“No,” Cas confirmed. “Still potential.”

Kevin nodded. “Yeah, I’m here in my capacity as a nerd who has had a couple of brushes with the supernatural and now can’t just go back to my ‘normal’ life.”

“A couple?” Dean asked, picking up on the word choice.

“Yeah, I helped out with a werewolf problem on my campus a few weeks ago. One brush, I was willing to move past, but a second in two years? Yeah, no going back from that. When the girl who I helped mentioned that you guys had a base of operations now, I jumped at the chance to see if I could help. So she sent me here.”

Dean shared a smile with Cas. “Let me guess,” he said. “The girl had long blonde hair, lots of eye makeup, and an epic resting bitch face?”

Kevin nodded, like that had made perfect sense.

“Good to know Claire is doing okay, then,” Sam said.

They’d received a couple of quick calls from her asking for information, including a recent one on werewolves that now made sense, but no other communication.

“So, Kevin Tran, you want to become a Man of Letters?” Dean asked.

“Umm yeah? If that’s what a supernatural researcher is called.”

Dean glanced at Cas, who nodded. His intentions were pure, as far as Cas could tell, which would have to do.

“Well then, I’ll let our resident Man of Letters here give you the orientation.” He and Cas stood, and as they left the room, he could hear Sam’s excited voice.

“So. What do you want to see first? The library, the archives, or the telescope?”

“Oh, wow. Really?” Kevin asked, his voice faint as Dean and Cas headed back to the gym where they had been working on combat moves when Kevin had rung the doorbell.

“So what do you think?”

“Of Kevin or of the latest Claire spotting?” Cas asked as they walked onto the practice mat. Not that either really needed a soft landing pad, but it was nice fighting on something with no tree roots to trip them up or hard concrete to face plant on. Dean swung the first punch, and they were off.

“Either, I guess. We should probably have a talk with Claire about not giving out our location to all and sundry.”

“‘All and sundry’?” Cas asked, surprised.

“Damn it. Is the next phase of this bond mimicking each other’s language?” Dean ducked, twisted, and kicked his leg out, but Cas easily side-stepped the move.

“Can you speak Enochian?”

Dean took a minute to wrack his brain. “I don’t think so?”

Cas said something sounding vaguely spell-like while throwing a right hook and pivoting to avoid Dean’s return volley.

“Yeah, no, I didn’t get a word of that.”

“I expect that it’s simply that I’ve rubbed one off on you, because we spend all of our time together.”

Dean guffawed. “ _Rubbed_ _off_ on me, Cas.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Sexual connotation.”

“Hmmm, human language is strange.”

“Won’t argue with you, man. But anyway. Thoughts on Claire?”

“I agree that we should speak to her about her loose tongue.”

“And what about her still hunting?”

“We knew it was a distinct possibility when we started training her. We can only hope she feels comfortable enough to come to us if she needs help, which she’s showing some signs of, with her calls to ask questions and her sending Kevin to us.”

“Yeah, I think so too. And Kevin? He seem legit?” Dean danced out of the way of a punch, then dove in low, but Cas easily saw through the moves and responded in kind.

“I read only sincerity from him; he truly seems to want to learn and help. I will keep an eye on him, but I think we’re safe.”

“Between you and the bunker’s wards, I think so too.”

Cas slipped in too quick for even Dean’s increased reflexes to avoid, and less than a second later, he had been slammed on his back, grateful for the soft mat. “You’re getting better. It took me thirty seconds longer to defeat you this time.”

“Wow, a whole thirty seconds. I can’t wait to tell Mom.”

Cas thumped his ear teasingly. “I’m an angel, trained for millennia in combat and strategy, I led a garrison, and I have inhuman strength and speed. You’re a human with above average human reflexes and strength. You’re doing very well. Accept the compliment.”

Dean was trying to think up a comeback when he realized that Cas still hovered on top of him, very close. He lost himself in blue eyes and that comforting pre-rain scent. Were they closer together than they had been a few seconds before? He glanced down at Cas’s lips, but before he could make what probably would have been a monumentally stupid move, the door to the gym banged open.

“Oh, sorry,” Sam called from across the room. “Just giving Kevin the tour.”

Cas jerked, then sat back on his feet before standing and giving Dean a hand up. “No problem. I was just winning again.”

Dean stood and rubbed the back of his neck. “Lost yet, Kevin?” he asked with only a small tremor in his voice.

Kevin’s eyes were wide and there was a faint blush on his pale cheeks. “Um. Only half lost, I think. I probably won’t use this room much, if at all, so we’ll get out of your hair. Congrats on the win, Castiel!” he waved awkwardly, then he and Sam backed out of the door, and Dean avoided looking Cas in the eye.

“I’m starving. Want some pie?”

“I’m good, thanks,” Cas answered softly.

Dean allowed himself a quick glance before looking back at the now-empty doorway. Cas had a frown on his face, and his shoulders were slumped. Dean wished yet again that he had a window into Cas’s deeper thoughts and feelings, rather than mouse tunnel to his momentary reactions.

***

Claire showed up two days after Kevin. Dean and Kevin had just finished a session at the shooting range—if he was going to live at the bunker, he needed to have at least the basics of gun safety and use—and they had decided to head to the library where Dean knew Cas was. He’d felt a ping of surprise through the connection earlier, but since Cas sometimes got very excited over books, Dean hadn’t thought much of it.

As they neared the library entrance, Dean picked up on a higher-pitched voice than he was used to hearing in the bunker, and they walked in to find Claire and Cas talking at the library table.

Claire glanced over at the movement, and her face flashed a surprised smile. “Kevin! You came. How is the Men of Letters life treating you?”

Kevin smiled and waved awkwardly. “Hi, Betty. Oh, wait, Castiel said your name is actually Claire?”

“That’s me,” she confirmed. “Dean,” she added, nodding at him, her nonchalant mask in place again.

Dean vowed to get her and Kevin to hang out more, seeing that she’d dropped that mask when he was around. She needed to interact with someone closer to her age.

“Hey, kiddo. I hear you ganked some rogue werewolves. Good job. Silver bullets?”

She let her smirk slip through. “Silver-tipped arrows.”

He laughed. “Just make sure you get in some time at the range while you’re here. I won’t let it be known that a hunter I taught can’t use a gun correctly.” He thought a moment, then continued. “Maybe we should get Charlie in here for some archery lessons too. She does it for her roleplaying.”

“Who’s Charlie?” Claire asked.

“Oh, she’s super cool!” Kevin exclaimed. “I had a video call with her yesterday for some research. She’s a wicked hacker, _and_ she LARPs.”

Claire raised her eyebrows, and Dean decided they’d definitely get Charlie to the bunker soon. It had been a while since they’d seen her, and he missed her. And she hadn’t met Cas yet either.

With the largest crowd they’d had at the bunker yet, Dean decided to go all out on dinner that night. They had burgers with lots of fancy topping choices, homemade fries, Caesar salads for the rabbits, and blueberry crumble for dessert. Cas helped with the veg chopping and made the croutons for the salad. Dean loved that they worked in the kitchen together almost as well as they fought bad guys together. There was a fluidity to their movements around each other that predated the bond that just made him plain happy. He’d get in the zone and just _know_ how to move in a way that complimented Castiel’s movements. Plus, kitchen work was way less bloody and concussion-inducing than fighting was. Double plus, **_food_**.

Sam, Kevin, and Claire spent the time before dinner cleaning out an old formal dining room that had been shut up until Cas had stumbled across it a few weeks before. With their guests, it made more sense to eat at a table with more room to spread out than the kitchen table offered. Plus, fancy burgers deserved a fancy eating space. They even found old candlesticks, a miraculously not moth-eaten tablecloth, and fancy dishes in the huge, dark wood dresser thing in the room (Sam corrected Dean, calling it a sideboard).

Sometime during the cleanup, Claire seemed to realize it was okay to smile around the adults, and so dinner was lighthearted and fun. Dean, Sam, and Cas shared hunting stories, and Sam and Cas went into the history of the bunker. After the crumble was devoured, they ended up in the TV room with the latest Marvel movie, during which Cas asked constant questions until Dean put a hand over his mouth to shut him up and then promised to put the entire Marvel movie canon on their list of movies to watch. Dean fought against his instinct to plant a kiss on his cheek for being so adorable and annoying. They weren’t there. Yet. But maybe … someday.

After the movie, everyone split up to their rooms. After a promise from Claire to stay for a few weeks, Dean decided to call up Charlie about getting her in for archery, and maybe even hacker, lessons for the new kids. He was lying on the bed and Cas was at the desk when he made the call.

“Dean!” Charlie answered after the third ring. “How’s it hanging, man?”

“Same old, Your Worshipfulness. You?”

Dean could almost hear the shrug in her voice. “I can’t complain, I guess. Hacking. Campaigning. The life of a queen.”

“Girlfriend?”

“Sadly no. You?”

Dean paused when he realized he hadn’t updated Charlie on the whole bond thing. “Complicated,” he finally said. “I’ll tell you some other time. I’ve got a favor to ask of you for now.”

“You’re not getting a second credit card line.”

Dean smiled. “Stingy queen.”

“I’ll not be the cause of you single-handedly crashing the U.S. economy.”

“Fine, fine. But that’s not why I’m calling. I’d like you to come to the bunker and give archery lessons to a couple of newbies. And maybe go over some basic internet and hacking tips.”

“Really? I finally get to see the bunker?”

Dean could already imagine her geeking out over all the vintage equipment. He wouldn’t see her or Sam for days. “If you want,” he said. “And I mean that. _Only_ if you want. We won’t pull you back in if you don’t want to.”

“Meh, I’ve resolved myself to being a part of this world now. I mean, Sam called me just a couple of days ago about some research. And I got to meet the new helper, Kevin. Oh, is he one of the newbs you’re talking about?”

“Yeah. Him and a girl named Claire.”

“She’s a young woman, Dean,” Cas said, not looking up from whatever he was doing at the desk.

“She’s like twelve,” Dean shot back, mouth pulled back from the phone (he was polite like that).

“Oh, is that Sam?” Charlie asked. “Say hi to him for me!”

“Uh, no, that was Cas, actually.”

“OH. EM. GEE. DO I GET TO MEET CAS?!?” Dean grimaced and pulled the phone away from his ear while she screeched. When Charlie calmed, she continued. “Yup, I’m so there if I get to meet Cas. I’ll drive out tomorrow.”

“Cool. Thanks, Charlie. I’ll send you the GPS coordinates for the bunker in just a minute.”

“Nah, don’t worry about that. I’ve known the bunker’s location for months.”

“What? Then how come we haven’t had a visit from you yet?”

“I was waiting for an invitation, like a polite wannabe guest. But _someone_ has been stingy with their invites.”

“The prevailing trend is to just drop in unannounced, so you’d have fit right in if you did the same.”

“Whatevs. I finally got my invite. Prepare me a room! I’ll be there tomorrow. Wow, I can’t wait to get a look at all that old computer equipment Sam’s been telling me about. Okay, I need to pack and send some emails letting people know I’ll be unavailable for a while. How long do you want me there for? Doesn’t matter, I’ll pack for 2 weeks. You have a laundry, right? Of course you do. It’s a bunker in the middle of nowhere. Oh, and I need to stop by the corner store and pick up road trip snacks, oh and download a few podcasts for the drive. Oh shoot, do I have enough clean clo–”

“Okay, Charlie. See you soon. Text when you’re about thirty minutes out. ‘kay, bye.”

Not even giving her a chance to reply, for fear of it being another thirty minutes of stream of consciousness, Dean ended the call, then got up to hover over Cas. He rested his forearms on Cas’s shoulders from behind and dropped his chin onto his soft brown hair.

“Whatcha doin’?”

Cas put a hand on Dean’s wrist. “Reading.”

“Got that from the book and the lamp. Watcha readin’?”

“A book on eighteenth-century witches.”

“Cool. You coming to bed soon?”

“In a few minutes. I want to finish this chapter.” He sounded distracted, so Dean decided not to annoy him anymore.

“‘Kay. I’m gonna get ready for bed then.”

“Sounds good. Be there soon.” He turned his head and placed a quick kiss on the palm of Dean’s hand, then let go.

That scant amount of connection nearly combusted Dean where he stood. He must’ve zoned out for a few, because he came to with Cas turned around and looking at him with a concerned face. “Dean?”

Cas must not have realized what he’d done. Either that or he was acting. But Cas was a _shit_ actor.

“Oh, yeah, sorry. Just thinking. I’ll, um, leave you to your witches.

Cas hummed and turned back to his book, and Dean went over to the sink to do his pre-bed routine.

He thought about the kiss as he brushed his teeth. He thought about the kiss as he washed his face. He thought about the kiss as he changed into pajamas. He thought about the kiss while lying in bed, waiting for Cas to join him. Then the bed dipped, and Cas settled on his side next to him, their fingers intertwined and his chin resting in the crook of Dean’s shoulder. He wore Dean’s Fleetwood Mac shirt that he often managed to “accidentally” grab instead of his own sleep shirt, and Dean would never lodge one complaint about the thievery.

“You seem distracted. Are you okay, Dean?”

“Yeah, of course. Just tired, I guess. And thinking about what to do with all these people we suddenly have in our home.”

_A kiss,_ he thought giddily. _Castiel, angel of the Lord, kissed me._

Cas hummed. “ _Home_. I like it when you call the bunker that.”

“Well, it is. It’s got our bedroom, kitchen, books, armory, everything a hunter could need.”

_A kiss. I want more kisses._

“True. So, what are your plans for everyone?”

_A kiss. Can I ask for more?_

Dean mentally shook himself from his stupor to concentrate on the conversation. “Um, nothing too concrete. Thought you could help with that. And Sam too. We should all meet up tomorrow to discuss. My thoughts so far are getting Claire and Kevin trained up with the basics of various weaponry—Charlie can take archery, and I’m sure she’ll bring her LARP sword, so probably a bit of that, for fun—you can take hand-to-hand combat, Sam’ll do knives, and I’ll do guns. Then all of you can get together and do smart person stuff in the library and archives, while I keep everyone fed, I reckon.”

“You’re very good at the feeding thing.”

Dean grinned. “I know. It’s fun.”

Cas pulled himself up to rest on his elbow. “I’m glad you like it, but also …” He pursed his lips (lips Dean tried _not_ think about) for a moment in thought. “But you’re smart, too, you know.”

Dean shrugged as well as he could while lying down. “Not everyone is meant to be smart, Cas. I’m okay with being one of those people. I’ve got guns and food.” He winked, trying to cover his self-consciousness.

“No, Dean, you _are_ smart. You may not love to read books for hours, but that’s not the only way a person can be smart. You’re a strategist, you’re quick on your feet, you’re wicked in a fight—you have to be smart to strategize during combat. You have a sharp wit in an argument. You have a good memory when something interests you. You can quote large chunks of movies, you can memorize stats, you remember every important detail about the people you love. All of that on top of being the most caring, righteous person I know. It’s no surprise that you quickly became my favorite human in all the world.”

Dean’s chest was tight and there was a lump in his throat. Was he really all those things? Cas made him sound positively … cool. Like, James Bond cool. And maybe … someone worthy of an angel?

_Kiss him. It’s the perfect moment. He’s just shared all the ways he thinks you’re wonderful. Just do it. **Kiss him**_.

Dean put a hand to Cas’s jaw, rubbing his stubble with his thumb. His gaze shifted between his eyes and his lips, longing deep in his gut. He could do it. He could kiss this being he loved more than life itself. God, how he wanted to. So bad. But just as he was about to lift his head from his pillow, a frisson of panic shot up his spine, and he froze. He covered it with a smile, patted Cas’s cheek, and let his arm drop.

“Thanks, Cas. That- that really means … a lot. Yeah.” He let out a yawn so fake even Cas would be able to see it for the cover up it was. “Wow, I guess cooking for a crowd took a lot out of me. And we’ve likely got a lot of training ahead of us the next few days. I should get some shut-eye.”

Cas started to sit up, but Dean grabbed his wrist. “Lay here until I fall asleep?” Usually, he didn’t have to ask, but Dean worried he’d ruined the moment by pulling back. He knew he’d flubbed it, at the very least, by not returning Cas’s list of praise with one of his own. Problem was, he might love Cas with every fiber of his being, but he didn’t know the words to explain why. Despite what Cas said, Dean wasn’t smart, not in the traditional sense. He wasn’t good with words, especially where feelings were involved. He could quip as good as Buffy, but he’d never come close to matching the poetry he needed to express his love. And until he could, he’d shy from the more physical aspects of a relationship that he was beginning to believe Cas wanted as well. The forlorn look on his face as Dean turned on his side away from his partner confirmed that.

***

After breakfast, he, Sam, and Cas sat down to hash out a plan to train up the kids. Dean loved seeing the light spark in his brother’s eyes as they worked out the details. The man was an excellent hunter, but leadership and knowledge was where he really shined. Dean may not have what it took to be a true Man of Letters, but Sam had been cut from Henry Winchester’s cloth and had settled into the role like a duck to water. Dean could see the longing for fieldwork in his eyes from time to time, but usually he was content to act as their hunter liaison. And to be honest, Dean was glad to have him out of harm’s way, excellent hunter or not. He could concentrate on the hunt better when he wasn’t worried for Sam’s life. Still, it was good to get the occasional confirmation that he truly was happy with his new work.

If Cas was still upset over Dean’s fuck up the night before, he didn’t show it. He was his normal gruff but sweet self. He stayed as close to Dean as he normally did and talked to him like nothing had happened. Still, Dean’s guilt remained. They were balanced on a sword point, and he was afraid he’d ruin everything, bumbling through his emotions as he always did. He tried to remind himself that he’d come a long way from where he’d been only six months ago, but it was hard to keep that in mind when he was worrying about FUBARing the whole relationship. What would happen to the bond if they ended up distancing themselves emotionally before it finished forming? Or even if it settled and then things went pear shaped.

He tried to distract himself with strategizing and then gun practice. He and Cas sparred, but only briefly, since he couldn’t concentrate. When Cas asked what was wrong, Dean waved it off and decided to go make a loaf of sourdough. Cas followed but sat at the kitchen worktop with a book rather than helping. But that part was at least pretty normal. Dean liked the calming rhythms of breadmaking. It was like meditation, and he liked to do it by himself, as much as he loved cooking with Cas. Once the dough was rising under a towel, they joined the others in the library. Everyone was in separate corners, doing their own thing, which suited Dean’s mood just fine. He picked up a book on medieval fighting styles he’d been working on for the last few weeks and settled on the loveseat with Cas.

The skin-to-skin contact felt like it always had, and Dean let himself be grounded by it. As difficult as it had been getting used to needing to be around another person nearly twenty-four/seven, he was so used to it at this point that he wasn’t sure how he’d react to having his independence again once the bond finally cemented. A very small part of him hoped it would take the full two years Cas had estimated it might. At least while forced to be together, he didn’t have to worry about messing things up so badly that Cas left him, as he physically couldn’t. Still, Dean needed to fix things before they went irreparably wrong. If only he knew how.

Charlie arrived in late afternoon, and with her appearance, the noise levels went up a few notches. Even with the additions of Kevin and Claire, it had stayed pretty quiet, but with Charlie, it felt a bit more like a real hub. He wondered if it had the chance of reaching the bustle he imagined it had held before the place had gone into lockdown. He hoped so. The hunting world needed at least some manner of centralization. Bobby did what he could, but he was one man in a rambling house with no filing system for his book stash. He was definitely a resource they still used, but they didn’t need to rely solely on him anymore.

They celebrated Charlie’s arrival with another big dinner, this time lasagna with garlic bread, green beans, and an apple pie for dessert—with Dean’s now tried-and-true, from-scratch pie crust. After that, it was _Dancing with the Stars_ , including lots of fighting over votes, and then a few episodes of some true crime show Sam was obsessed with.

Dean’s bedtime routine was quiet, but when he crawled into bed, Cas followed right after, still acting as if all was well. Was it all in Dean’s head, then? He got stuck in it, sometimes, his faults forming a feedback loop with every shitty thing he’d been told growing up. He would come out of it days later to find no one else had been affected by whatever had triggered him. The world had turned, the weather had changed, and monsters had been found and killed, all while he’d been lost in his own thoughts.

This time, though, he found he was ready to reenter the world after just a day. That was progress, wasn’t it? All those discussions on feelings he and Cas had been having lately, they must be working at least a little. He felt like if he could just get over this last hump, they’d be golden. Cas would know how Dean felt, and they’d be able to really start living their lives. If only he could do that one last thing …

“Cas,” he began, heart in his throat. “I …”

After a few moments, Cas tightened his hand on Dean’s wrist. They lay side by side, as they often did while Dean fell asleep. Everything was perfectly normal.

“Yes, Dean?”

_Just say it, man_ , he told himself. _Cas **knows** you love him, so just **say** the damn words._

He took a deep breath. “Good night, Cas.”

There was a pause. “Good night, Dean.”

***

Dean enjoyed watching the kids at archery practice. You could be a little less serious around arrows than with guns. Not that he downplayed the serious injuries that could come from them, but you’d really have to fuck things up to accidentally kill someone with a shot. You had to be more intentional with arrows than with bullets. Still, though he let them goof a bit, he made sure they followed the usual safety protocols, and Cas was on hand in case anyone was shot.

As they were putting away the equipment and getting ready to head in for lunch, Cas was called to the library by Sam to help with a question, so Dean supervised the rest of cleanup, then led the gang to the kitchen. He’d decided on a sandwich buffet, so there was little prep other than laying everything out and then wait for Cas and Sam to show.

Dean and Charlie were standing side-by-side at the worktop, laying out the meats and cheeses (yes, they had multiple types of each), when she finally asked the question Dean had been anticipating all morning.

She turned to him and rested her hip on the edge of the counter. “Dean, full nosy offense, but, why are you and Cas always around each other these days? He’s been at the bunker for months, even though he’s an angel and doesn’t need to sleep or eat or anything. I mean, I get that you two are BFFs or whatever, and that he’s a bit persona non grata with Heaven these days, but, like, he’s _always_ here. And since I got here yesterday, I haven’t seen you two apart for longer than ten minutes.” She raised a sly eyebrow. “Is there something you want to tell me? You did promise to dish on ‘it’s complicated’ when we talked on the phone. So, what’s up?”

Dean sighed, trying to gather himself. Knowing the nerd twins, he figured he had eight minutes at most before Cas and Sam showed up. He’d need to keep this brief. He turned to get the loaf of bread for slicing, when he saw Claire and Kevin standing stock still, watching him with avid interest.

“Geeze. Right, okay. It’s …” he rubbed his brow, then went back to his work. It’d be easier while not looking at them. “So, about six months back, Sam and I were on a hunt for this weird yeti-cabra hybrid, and nothing we tried worked on it. By the time we each had a host of injuries from fighting the damn thing, we decided to resort to magic.”

And he told them about the ritual and how Sam couldn’t read fine print or Enochian worth a damn and how they’d scoured the library and archives for any way to break the bond, and how they’d learned to live with it since then. When he finished, they all stared into the distance in thought.

“Wow,” Kevin finally said. Claire nodded in agreement. They both started riffing off each other on myths that included bonds, and the different types of bonds, and then Dean stopped paying attention.

Charlie, though, continued to stand in thoughtful silence. Dean caught her staring at him a couple of times, but he wasn’t eager to answer her deeper questions, and luckily Sam and Cas entered the kitchen then, and they all settled in for a boisterous lunch.

By evening, Dean was tired of waiting for the inevitable conversation, and so when everyone split up for some free time after dinner, he told Cas he wanted to catch up with Charlie alone, and that he’d come find him when they were done. This was a conversation he needed to focus on, and not worry about Cas walking in and hearing something Dean wasn’t ready for him to hear.

He found her futzing with the ancient, ginormous computer, and luckily, she was alone.

“Busy?” he asked, sidling up next to her.

She looked fit to bursting to talk about her findings, but she was a pretty smart cookie, and it took her only a single look to know Dean wasn’t there to talk to her about computers.

“Never, for my favorite hunter.”

“Don’t let Sam hear you say that.”

“Well, he’s my favorite Man of Letters, so it works. P.S. There’s gotta be a less sexist name than that.” She spun her chair around to grab another nearby and rolled it next to her. “Have a seat. Tell your queen your problems.”

Dean’s chuckle turned into a sigh as he settled down. “I’m sure you realize there’s more to Cas and me’s story,” he began.

“Uh, chyeah. You can cut that tension with a knife, man.”

“Shit, I thought we were doing pretty good. Do you think the kids noticed?”

“Well, they’re far from dumb, so probably, a bit. But I’ve got something they don’t.”

“What’s that.”

“One, the _Supernatural_ books and accompanying fanfic. And two, the lived experience of gay panic.”

Dean huffed a bitter laugh. “One, we need to find and burn every copy of those damn books. And two, definitely some, as you call it, gay panic, but it’s not only that.”

“It never is,” she said with a sage nod.

“Yeah.” Dean wracked his brain, wondering where to begin. “I think I experienced most of the actual gay panic pretty early on. I mean, when you get angel married to a being wearing the vessel of a dude—a dude you’ve thought was wicked hot for longer than you’d allowed yourself to acknowledge—you kinda have to face that part of yourself head on. At least when it involves near-constant proximity to your crush for possible years on end.” He rubbed his face with his hands. When had his life gotten so weird? “Well, although I faced it internally, Cas and I’ve never had that talk. About my sexuality–”

“Bi?” Charlie cut in.

“Sooo bi.”

“Knew it! Continue.”

“Anyway, yeah. I never really came clean about that, and we avoided talking about the romantic aspect this type of bond usually has, and we just … settled in as platonic roomies/best friends who sometimes hold hands and cuddle in bed.”

“Awwww.” Charlie put her hands to her heart. “That’s sooo cute.”

“Breathe a word to anyone, and you’re dead.”

“You gotta get over your toxic masculinity, man.”

“Look, Sammy has watched us huddle up together on the couch damn near every day since this happened. I’m not afraid to show it, I just really hate the word ‘cuddle.’ I’m not a fourteen-year-old.”

“Words are power, Dean. Own the word!” Charlie grinned and spun in her chair.

Dean rolled his eyes. “Whatever. So. Since then, it’s been this weird thing of us getting physically closer and not talking about it. And it’s great, and I love how comfortable it is, but at the same time, it’s killing me. I am literally dying over here, Charlie. The other day, _he kissed my palm_.”

“Oh la la, quelle scandal! Did you flash him your ankle?”

“Shut up, or I’ll stop now and never talk to you again.”

“All talk, no action.” She fluttered her eyelashes. “You need my advice, which, by the way, will consist of whacking you upside the head and tell you to forking go for it already. But go on.”

He glared at her, but since she really was the only one he could tell this to, he kept talking. “I’ve tried to say the words so many times, but I freeze before I can get them out. And the other night, we were about _half a goddamn inch_ from kissing, but again, I freaked out and stopped it. Like, I _know_ he loves me. And I’m ninety percent sure he knows I love him, but I just … can’t do it.”

Charlie leaned over and slapped him on the back of his head. “Just forking go for it already, Winchester!”

“Hey!” He rubbed the back of his head, which didn’t really hurt, but he liked the drama of it. Then he sighed and slumped back in his chair. “What if I fuck it up? I’ve never managed to keep a lasting, healthy relationship. I mean, my mom died when I was a kid, my dad was an obsessive workaholic asshole, and Sam sees this bunker as a waystation and workplace, despite my very big attempts to make this place a home. The few romantic relationships I’ve tried have all failed. I can’t lose him, Charlie. He’s my best friend, my other half. Not to mention, we’ve got this whole bond thing keeping us connected.”

“There’s one thing you’re forgetting, Dean Winchester.”

“And what’s that?”

“That Cas is not like anyone else. And not just because he’s an angel with a literal unbreakable bond to you. He’s seen you at your best and worst, and he’s stayed. He understands you on a fundamental level that I think only Sam can come close to matching. He gripped you tight and raised you from perdition!”

“Oh God, you’ve been talking to Cas, haven’t you?”

“Oh, em, gee, Dean. He is literally the most adorable thing ever. I love him so much, and if you don’t lock that down soon, I might steal him from you.”

“You’re a lesbian, Charlie.”

She shot him an unbelieving glance. “He’s an angel. His vessel is not his gender. Stop being so narrow minded.” She punched him on the arm, but then slid her hand up to grip his shoulder. “But in all seriousness, friend. I _know_ you can do this. Anyone looking at the two of you can see how in love you are, and from the way Sam and the _Supernatural_ books tell it, that was happening long before the bond came into the picture. You won’t mess this up, not really. You’ll make mistakes, yeah, but nothing that could irreparably harm him or break the two of you apart. Just … learn to talk, Dean. And remember, you’re not alone anymore. If you ever do have problems, go talk to someone, ask for help. Me, Sam, Bobby, even Claire and Kevin, we’re here for you, and we love you. Not to mention, we all ship you two so hard. We want to see this work.”

“What the fuck does ‘ship’ mean?”

She gave him a final pat on his shoulder. “I’ll tell you when you’re older.”


	3. Part III: Forever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean finally mans up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I borrowed Cas’s love of Niagara Falls from the [Valentines series](https://archiveofourown.org/series/944265) by CBFirestarter and EllenofOz. I thought it was really cute.

Charlie stayed for a week, and Claire for another after that, and after they’d both gone, the bunker felt too quiet, even though four people remained ensconced inside. After a week of too much quiet, Dean talked Cas into a hunt. Had he been thinking, he would’ve stayed at home, or at least picked a hunt closer to the bunker, but it took him twenty minutes into the drive to Montana to realize it would be just him and Cas in a car together for, like, a thousand hours. For the first part of the drive, he ignored the thought and let himself get lost in the freedom of the open road. They didn’t get out nearly as much as they used to, and he missed it. Yeah, part of him liked having a home base, with a kitchen and a memory foam mattress and the stability of routine. But part of him would always be a hunter, and the idea of being cooped up in one spot for too long made him itch.

“What are you thinking about?” Cas asked.

His fingers played with Dean’s on the bench seat between them. Allowing that action and the many others that platonic friends generally didn’t do, it didn’t freak him out anymore. Hadn’t for months now. So why was he freaking out at this one last step? Well, really, a few steps: kissing, the L-word, and possibly, maybe, sex. But he thought if he could do one, he’d be able to make the rest happen too. If he could conquer the fear that he’d take things too far only for them to fall apart later, he’d be golden. But that fear … it was a doozy, and he didn’t know how to get over it, even after Charlie’s pep talk.

Dean shrugged, putting his worries aside. “About how great our lives are. Not a sighting of angels for months, a safe place to come home to, family and friends a phone call away, us getting out from time to time for a hunt.”

Cas smiled. “Apple pie life.”

“Apple pie life,” Dean agreed with his own grin.

“Even with the bond?” Cas asked softly. The two of them hadn’t talked about the bond itself in months. It had become such an everyday part of their lives, that it would be like talking about having hands. But maybe they needed to discuss it again. Maybe it would help Dean figure things out.

“I think all of this happened because of the bond, actually. Like, we already had the bunker, and you were already hanging around a lot, but you and me taking the bulk of the cases because we had to stay together gave Sammy time to stay at the bunker and research and start building his network. And because of that, Claire was able to find us. And because of our bond, we didn’t react badly when she showed up, which meant she felt safe in staying. And because of that, she sent Kevin our way. Not to mention the big one: with all our downtime, I became a fantastic chef and baker.”

Cas hummed. “True. But I think it was down to you that any of this worked. You wished so hard for a home that when the possibility presented itself, you fought for it. You made the bunker a home, rather than just a place to sleep at night. The comfort you imbued the space with made Claire and Kevin seek us out.”

Feeling a bit self-conscious at the praise, Dean turned it around. “I wouldn’t have wanted it if I didn’t have you and Sam to anchor me there.”

“Then it’s because of a very fortuitous set of events plus love that made it all possible.”

The L-word made the breath catch in Dean’s throat, but Cas didn’t take it any further than that, and he breathed easy after a minute went by.

“Yeah, we got lucky.”

They settled into a silence not too fraught, and after a while, he turned on the radio, which kept them company until their next gas stop.

It got easier after that. They talked about Claire and Kevin’s progress with weapons training, and how, surprisingly, it was Claire who had taken to Charlie’s hacking lessons more than Kevin, who wasn’t particularly comfortable with the moral implications of the work. They played a few car games, and Dean made Cas learn all the words to “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Cas took the night shift so they could drive straight through, and by the time Dean woke up the next morning, they’d arrived at their destination.

The hunt was actually interesting: a nachz-something that Dean thought could be better named a ghoul‑pire. This one apparently took after the ghoul side of the family and was chomping on the recently deceased at night. Defeating it went more easily than expected. As soon as they (Cas) realized it wasn’t a pure ghoul, they (Cas) acquired the coin necessary to kill it, Dean stabbed it a few times with a silver knife to distract it, Cas popped in and put the coin in its mouth, and then Dean chopped its head off. As always, they worked like a well-oiled machine and accumulated few injuries, all of which healed in minutes.

Pleasantly exhausted from the fight, they happily headed back to the hotel after grabbing dinner. Dean ordered twice as much as usual for himself, as Cas still liked to pretend he didn’t enjoy eating but ended up stealing food anyways. Cas, of course, realized what Dean was doing, but dutifully ignored it and instead gently teased Dean at how hungry he must be to order so much food for just himself. It was so adorable of an act, Dean almost kissed him. Might have done so if the fast-food employee hadn’t leaned out of the window just then to give Dean the food.

It was getting harder to push down his instincts, and Dean’d finally reached the point where he really didn’t want to. It was _Cas_ , and Cas was worth so much risk. He’d dive into the unknown for his angel, he realized. And while he’d always known that in a life-or-death sense, he realized the same could be said for love and the future of their relationship. And there it was, the breakthrough: Cas was worth the risk. He was worth everything. Even if things eventually went south, he would have had at least a moment of pure happiness with the person he loved.

And so when they got to their hotel, and they’d eaten and cleaned off the bloody mess left on them from the ghoul-pire, when Cas made a really terrible joke about numbers, Dean dropped the towel he was using to dry his hair, stalked up to where Cas stood, took his beautiful face in his hands, and just … kissed him. Just like that. Like it was nothing. And everything. Like it was the beginning and the end. But more like it was the middle, and they had a long way to go until the end.

“Can I keep you forever?” Dean asked when they came up for air a few minutes later.

And Cas—gorgeous, amazing, ridiculous, smart, clueless angel who had changed Dean’s life in the best of ways—simply smiled and answered “yes.” Like it was nothing. And everything.

***

“Do you want to tell your brother? And Kevin?” Cas asked later, when they lay blissed out in bed, more intertwined than usual, following a spectacular make-out session that had proceeded to spectacular sex.

“Hmm?” Dean asked lazily, then he realized what Cas had said. He sat up. “What? Of _course_ I want to tell them, both of them, and Claire and Charlie, Bobby, Jody, and Garth, and all our friends. Why would you think …” Dean stared at his angel. How could Cas question that? Cas was amazing, and he wanted to shout it to the rooftops that they were finally, _finally_ together. “Cas?”

Cas sat up as well and put his arms around raised knees. He shrugged and looked down. “I know you’ve struggled with your sexuality, and you sometimes still jerk back when someone interrupts us touching, so I thought you might … be ashamed? I knew you had feelings for me, even before the bond, and I thought that if you ever did confess those feelings to me, they’d be couched in the assumption that we’d keep it a secret. Or that if we did tell, we’d say it was because of the bond, not because you truly wanted to. And I … I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to keep your sexual identity quiet. Human identity carries so much social weight, and especially in the hunter community, your masculinity is very important. So I’d underst–”

“Stop, no, just … _no_.” Dean took hold of Cas’s face and turned it to face him, then he let his fingers play at his features like he’d been aching to do for so long. “Castiel, I love you. Like, _love_ love. And I’ve done so for years. You get me like no one else has, and I like to think I get you too, and- and we fight well together and we’ve made this beautiful home and we have a family and we were lucky enough to get to share this amazing bond that no other human has ever had with another being, and our lives are fucking _awesome_. And I want everyone to know that. Everyone.”

“Really?” Cas’s eyes were bright with moisture.

Dean kissed him. “One thousand percent.”

After a moment, Cas hummed and pulled away. “I love you too, Dean Winchester.”

They lay back down, and Dean buried his face in Cas’s neck, and Cas slid his hand over Dean’s heart, and it was perfect. “What made you choose tonight?”

Dean took a deep breath. “It’s been getting harder not to, lately. Harder not to kiss you, not to tell you, not to hold you. And I guess tonight I realized that my need for those things outweighed my fear. Plus, you were really hot fighting that ghoul-pire.”

Cas curled closer and started laughing. “You’re terrible.”

“You love me.”

Cas sighed out a last laugh, then rested his chin on Dean’s chest, smiling. “I do. And you love me.”

“I totally do, man. Like, so much.”

“So we tell Sam and Kevin when we get home?”

“Yeah.”

“And the others?”

“In person, if you’re okay with waiting? Maybe we can get Bobby, Garth, and Jody to drive in for a big family dinner. I’d love for them to meet the newbies anyway.”

“That sounds good. And the others?”

“Greedy,” Dean teased, leaning up to kiss his cheek. “I think the rest … just as or if it comes up. We won’t ask anyone to keep it quiet, but I don’t think we need to start each phone call with ‘by the way, me and Cas are shacking up now.’ And I’m not sure how much I want knowledge of the bond to get out. It could be dangerous, since we still don’t know much about it.”

“I agree, on keeping the bond to our immediate family. Need-to-know only.” It was quiet for a moment. “And you’re sure you want the hunter community to know about us, if it comes up?”

Dean hugged him. “Stop worrying. My identity will be fine. Charlie keeps telling me I need to get rid of toxic masculinity. And I think showing everyone how much of badass motherfuckers we are _because_ of our love for each other will help that.”

Cas laughed. “Alright.”

They lay in comfortable silence for a while. It was nice, not feeling that _need_ that had plagued Dean for so long. It was peaceful, both between them and in his head and heart. It reminded him a bit of how the bond had felt in the early days, when they’d been apart for a while and then would come back and touched again. That feeling that had calmed his frayed nerves, that’s what this felt like, but it had nothing to do with skin contact (though that was certainly very nice, and he could tell the bond was very happy they’d made this step too, even if it wasn’t required).

“Dean?”

“Hmmm?” He kissed Cas’s head, because he could.

Cas tightened his hand briefly on Dean’s bicep. “Would you be happier if I was in the vessel of a woman?”

“What?”

“Would our relationship be easier if–”

“Yeah, no, got that.” He contorted his head until he could see Cas’s face. “Why would you think that? You were here a while ago when you gave me that mind-blowing orgasm, right?”

Cas smiled but continued. “I understand that you love _me_ , and that the way a person looks does not always determine falling in love … but if life would be better if–”

“No. I love you, _all_ of you, just as you are. And yeah, like you said, physical appearance doesn’t always have much to do with love, but … I dunno, I kinda see you as how you appear now? I mean, if _you_ would be happier in another vessel, I’d support that, but, no, you don’t need to change anything for me. Just be you, okay?”

Cas studied his hands. “Yes, I see myself as this too. This vessel is mine, completely now.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Jimmy Novak died when Lucifer ripped me apart. God put me back together, and from then, this vessel has been mine to keep.”

“Damn. What happened to Jimmy?”

“He’s in Heaven, waiting for his family.”

“Good, I guess?”

“He is happy.”

“Then everyone is happy, and all is right with the world.” Dean hugged Cas close to him again. He was telling the truth when he said he’d support Cas if he decided to get a new vessel, but he was relieved that wasn’t an issue. He did see Cas as this particular shape he inhabited—the blue eyes, the soft brown hair, the gentle smile, they were all a part Cas. They weren’t all of him, but they were a part.

“Dean? I have a request. It’s very silly, and if you don’t want to do it, we don’t have to, but … I think I’d like to, if you’re amenable.”

“I’m _amenable_ to anything you want, sweetheart.”

“Be serious.”

“You said it was very silly.”

“I just meant … it’s not very angelic of me to want this.”

“Ohhh, I’m listening.”

“Not _that_ way.”

“Spit it out, Cas.” Dean tightened his arms around Cas.

“There is a custom among the newly married in the Western world. To go on a trip together. Following the wedding.”

“Hmmm, but there hasn’t been a wedding.”

“Yes, there was. On March third, twenty-thirteen, at six-fourteen PM, Eastern Standard Time.”

Dean’s breath caught. “You remember all that?” His voice did _not_ wobble.

“I remember everything about you. I pulled you from Hell on September eighteenth, two thousand and eight. I attempted to talk to you at a gas station that same day. We met in human form in a barn outside of Pontiac, Illinois, on September twentieth.”

“Okay, Nikola Tesla. I got it. You remember everything. So. You want a honeymoon.”

Cas hummed.

“Anywhere in particular?”

“I think I would like to visit Niagara Falls. I was always drawn to that particular geographic feature, and I’ve never seen it while in my human vessel. And I’d like to see it with you. Have you seen Niagara Falls before?”

“Just on TV. I’ve heard it’s pretty cool, though.”

“So you won’t mind–”

“Taking a honeymoon with you to Niagara Falls? Not at all. When you want to go?”

“Maybe after everyone visits and we tell them?”

“I’ll get it booked. I assume you want to drive, not fly? Fly with your wings, that is. I’m not flying in a tin can.”

“I like taking road trips with you.”

“Me too. I’ve spent half my life in that car, but somehow I never really get tired of it. Still, I’m glad for my memory foam at home. Makes it easier to travel knowing I’ll come home to that.”

***

Claire was back when they returned from the hunt. They’d taken their time driving back, and apparently she’d only beat them by a few hours.

“Missed us already, kiddo?” Dean asked, rubbing her head with his knuckles until she glared and pulled away.

“No way, old man. I just like having a real bed and food I don’t have to pay for.”

“Sure, whatever. You love us.”

Claire rolled her eyes before transferring her attention to Cas. “Castiel.”

“Claire.”

Dean still wasn’t sure what to think of those two. Claire had obviously recovered from hating him, but Cas still felt extremely guilty for what he’d done to her family, and she definitely felt that on some level. So far, they were going for politely distant. It’d be interesting to see where it went from there, though.

“Oh, hey, there you two are.” Sam walked into the map room and nodded at them. “Did you have trouble on the drive back? I expected you hours ago.”

“This one needed to ‘swim with the shark’—which is very much a lie—stop to see the world’s largest jackalope, and ‘pay tribute’ at the prostitute monument.” Cas rolled his eyes, picked up their bags, and met Dean’s gaze. They’d decided to tell Sam first, together, but Cas wanted to give Dean time first to say a few things to him alone. “Back in five.”

“Oh man, Sammy. You gotta see this. I got _pictures_.” He pulled out his phone. “Here, let’s go grab a couple of beers, and we’ll debrief.”

Sam, by now used to the fact that Dean would never want to be as formal with the hunt reporting that Sam wanted (Men of Letters BS, was what it was), nodded and followed Dean. “Oh, Claire,” he said, turning around to address her, “Kevin found that tulpa book you were asking about. He’s in the study room.”

She nodded. “Shooting range later, Dean?”

“Sounds good.”

They stopped at the fridge and then went to sit at the kitchen table while Dean expounded on the roadside attractions they’d been able to hit on the way back home. Once Dean had exhausted his pictures, he gave a quick rundown of the hunt, which Sam noted down for the archives he was building onto.

While Sam was finishing the last of his notes, Dean girded himself for the next thing they needed to talk about. “Hey, Sammy.”

“Hmm?”

Dean waited for him to look up from his paperwork to continue. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you for a while now.” He took a deep breath and rubbed his forehead. “Um, so, you know how the hunter lifestyle can be—all about being tough and manly and whatever, right?”

Sam nodded, face open.

“And Dad really bought into that, and I did too, for a long time. But a few years back, I realized something about myself, and I kept it quiet because of that lifestyle. For a while, I think I tried even harder to be the perfect hunter. But I’m ready to be myself now, I think.”

“Okay.” Sam had that dumb look on his face, the one where he looked both concerned and constipated.

“I, um, I- I’m bisexual.”

“Okay, thanks for telling me.” Sam didn’t show a hint of surprise at the confession.

Dean frowned at his brother. “That’s all that news gets? ‘Thanks for telling me’? Sammy, that took me a lot of guts to admit.”

“And I’m glad you finally felt comfortable telling me, really. But, the thing is … I’ve known for a while now. Probably longer than you have. Or, I knew before you admitted it to yourself at least.”

“What? How?” Had he always been so easy to read? He’d thought he’d done pretty good keeping things to himself.

“Well, for one, your love of Freddie Mercury was _not_ just hero worship.”

“Who is Freddie Mercury?” Cas wandered into the kitchen and sat down next to Dean. He put his hand on top of Dean’s. It was a long-practiced move, but it felt different, now that they were different. It felt better. Sam didn’t even bat an eye, and Dean realized they probably could have a completely secret relationship with no effort on their part. But he didn’t want that. He wanted to be ‘out,’ as the kids said.

“Lead singer for Queen,” the brothers intoned together.

Cas looked at them blankly.

“Dude who sings ‘Bohemian Rhapsody.’” Dean added.

Cas nodded. “‘I’m just a poor boy, from a poor family,’” he recited solemnly.

Sam laughed incredulously. “Did you make him memorize the whole song?”

“It was a fourteen-hour drive one way, man. What else were we supposed to do?” Dean defended.

“Talk?”

“We did that too. Just not for thirty goddamn hours.”

“Oh? Talk about anything … interesting?”

Dean pointed a finger at Sam. “You first. How else did you know? It couldn’t have just been my Freddie Mercury crush, which, thank you for that. Now I have to go back and revisit all my teenaged idols to figure out whether I wanted them or just wanted to _be_ them.”

“And does Cas–”

“Cas knows. Go on.”

“I mean,” Sam said, “I guess it wasn’t just any one thing. You lowkey flirt with anyone you think is good looking, regardless of gender, I guess that was a big one. Then a couple of years ago you started blatantly checking men out as often as you did women.” He shrugged, “it seemed really obvious?”

“And here I thought I was good at hiding this shit. What else have I been ‘blatantly obvious’ about?”

“Umm, well …” Sam shot a side glance at Cas.

Dean sighed. “Then I guess this next bit won’t come as a shock to you.” He turned his hand over and laced his fingers with Cas’s, who tightened his grip and smiled sweetly at Dean. “Cas and I are … together now. Like, not just angel married, but also human romantic relationship together.”

“Yeah?” Sam looked genuinely surprised at that news. “I mean, I knew you, um, had feelings–”

“It’s okay, you can say it. I love him.”

Sam’s face got all soft and smiley in that way that made Dean worry he’d want to hug. “Yeah, you _really_ do. So that’s not a surprise. But I kinda thought you two would be stuck in limbo forever.”

“More like Purgatory, with all the lowkey torture I went through.” Dean turned to Cas. “Is Purgatory real?” Cas nodded. “Then yeah, it was like that. But I finally got my head out of my ass and kissed this nerd.”

Sam looked vaguely sick. “Are you two going to turn into the gross PDA couple now?”

Dean winked at Cas, who grinned slyly back. “Maybe.”

“I guess that means you plan to tell the others?”

“Yup. Kevin and Claire today, probably call Charlie tonight, since she sorta helped me out with all this a few weeks ago. And I was thinking I’d invite Garth, Bobby, and Jody down soon. I want to tell them in person.”

Sam perked up. “Oh, hey, I was thinking of doing a sort of open house thing, now that we’ve got a lot of the bunker up and running. I thought our friends might like to see what happens here. We could plan for that soon, and you could tell them then?”

Dean glanced at Cas, who pushed his answer through their link.

“Sure. Okay.” Dean said for both of them.

“Cool. I’ll let you know once I hammer down some dates.” Sam looked like he was about to get up, then stopped. “Oh, was that it, or is there more news?”

“Dean is taking me to Niagara Falls for a honeymoon,” Cas announced proudly.

“Oh? Okay? Good … deal.” Sam looked very confused at Cas’s response.

Dean put an arm around Cas’s shoulders. “Come on, Sammy. This guy loves humanity. You really think he’d _not_ want to check a whole bunch of human rituals off his bucket list?”

Sam nodded. “Point taken.”

“Well, that’s one announcement done,” Dean said. “Time to divide and conquer. I think the kids are both in the library. You ready?” He glanced at Cas, who nodded. “Okay. Good talk, Sam. Thanks for listening.”

“Anytime, man.” Sam grabbed his arm as he passed by. “Really. Anytime.”

“I think this should set us for Hallmark moments for a while, but thanks. I appreciate it.”

Sam nodded, and Dean and Cas headed to the library.

***

After firing off a round, Claire pulled down her ear protection.

“You confess your undying love for my not-dad yet?”

“Wow, right out of the gate.” Dean nodded. “I can appreciate that.”

“So?”

“So … yeah. I did.”

“Cool. Charlie will be ecstatic.”

“And you?” Dean reloaded his gun, pointed to the earmuffs, and squeezed off the round. They lowered their ear protection again.

Claire shrugged, reloading her own gun. She was getting pretty good at it. Way more comfortable with funs than she’d been the first couple of times they’d gone to the range.

“It doesn’t bother me, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“I figured, but it’s good to have that confirmed. How are things going with Cas these days?”

She pulled up her muffs and Dean followed suit. When she’d finished shooting, she reloaded and went again. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “It’s still really weird, you know? He _looks_ like my dad, but his mannerisms, the way he speaks, the things he does, none of that is my dad. And I’m getting used to it, I think? Like pretending Dad had a weird twin brother or something. But any time I try to talk to him …” She shrugged, then turned and let herself slide down the wall to sit on the floor. Dean joined her.

“Claire, you have to know something about Cas. He’s changed _a lot_ in the last few years. When he first came to Earth, he didn’t know a damn thing about anything, humans included. He could rattle off orders in a million languages and dates of major human events throughout history, but us humans? How we really worked? Nada. He was clueless. And even though it’s true that your dad asked for Cas to take him as a vessel, neither of them really knew what they were getting into. And your dad? He didn’t leave you for nothing. Because of him, because Cas had a way to be on Earth, he saved the whole fucking world. Your dad’s a hero. But even knowing all of that, Cas still sees using him as a vessel as his greatest mistake.” He rolled his head to the side to look at her.

She stared straight ahead, eyes vacant. In memory? In pain?

“You okay?” he asked softly after a few minutes, when she’d come back to herself.

“Where is my dad?”

Dean tightened his lips. “I think that’s a conversation you should have with Cas.”

She sighed. “Right.”

“It’ll be good for you,” he added, trying to lighten the mood a bit. “I mean, I finally talked to Cas, and that ended up with a spectacular …” he glanced at her, “make-out session.”

“Ewwww. I don’t want to hear about old people sex.”

“Old people? _Old people_. I’m thirty-four!”

“Yeah. Old. You tell dad jokes and make us get eight hours of sleep and fix enough food for an army.”

“Damn it, I _am_ old. When the hell did that happen?”

“Search me.”

They sat in comfortable silence for a time, Claire sending a few texts but not moving from her spot, so Dean stayed too.

“Can I paint my room?”

Dean did a double take. Claire was still tapping on her phone, looking like she wasn’t even paying attention to him, typical teenager. And the request was also typical teenager. However, he hadn’t been aware she considered the space she slept in _her_ room. She came and went as she pleased, and yeah, he considered her family now, and always welcomed her in the bunker, but he didn’t know she felt the same. He always thought she considered them a waystation. A practical (and free) place to sleep and eat between jobs.

“Oh, um, maybe? But don’t paint the bricks. Just the gray stuff.”

“Cool, yeah. The gray is major depressing. Also, this place is in dire need of rugs. Everything is concrete. It’s not particularly warm.”

“Are you taking on the role of interior designer for the bunker now?”

“Because I’m a girl?”

“No, because you just gave me a list of changes this place needs.”

“Nah. Well, maybe me and Kevin. We’ve been talking about things. Like, just because this place is mostly underground doesn’t mean the interior walls and floors need to be concrete. I’ll bet a bunch of stuffy men in suits designed this place. All utility, no comfort. Can’t believe it took them three years to build this dump.”

Dean watched her rant in amusement, and a touch of nausea. He’d need to find Cas soon. “How’d you know that?”

“Reading. You should try it sometime.”

“Very funny.”

As if conjured, Cas opened the door to the room. He looked slightly confused to find them sitting on the cold, hard floor, but he merely held his hand out, which Dean took and allowed himself to be hauled up. Dean did the same for Claire, then he turned and hugged Cas, sighing as the bond calmed him. The bond was great, and he loved the feeling that came over him when he first touched Cas after time apart, but it’d be really great to finally be able to have heart-to-hearts with someone that could last longer than half an hour.

“It’s still really gross,” Claire sang, walking past them and out the door.

“Good!” Dean yelled at her retreating back, which made Cas chuckle.

After a few minutes breathing each other in, they finally pulled back. Dean raised his eyebrow.

“It went well, as expected,” Cas began. “Kevin is a bright young man who only wants everyone around him to be happy. Sort of like you. He’d suspected such an announcement would be coming. Apparently, there’s a betting pool going …”

“What?! Claire didn’t mention that.”

“Are you surprised?”

“No, not really.”

“And your talk?” Cas asked.

“Good. Probably similar to yours, but with three times the sarcasm. She called me an old person!”

“You are over twice her age.”

“That’s not that hard, she’s twelve!”

Cas hummed, eyebrows raised.

“I’m not old.” He picked a piece of lint off his shirt. “I’m not.”

“But you are someone making decisions for multiple people. At her age, she can’t really fathom that, not in any practical sense. She’s focused on herself right now, as she should be.”

“She wants to paint her room.”

“I didn’t realize she considered it her room.”

Dean huffed a laugh. “Me neither.”

“That’s good, right? It means she sees this as a safe place and that she wants to stay?”

“I reckon so, yeah.” He looked up at Cas. “I talked to her about Jimmy. I didn’t tell her where he was,” he rushed to assure his angel. “Just that she should talk to you, and that you understand how your actions affected her family.”

“Does she hate me?”

“Nah. She’s … cautious, but I think she realizes that you’ve changed a lot since then, and that you’d do things different if you could.”

Cas sighed. “I really would. It’s a pretty shitty system, isn’t it? Us being required to take vessels.”

“Especially given that it’s been shown that they can remake a vessel just for you.”

“Perhaps my Father did not want us coming down to Earth frequently.”

Dean laughed. “I get that. Y’all really do fuck things up when you come down here.”

Cas hummed. “Well, shall we go inside? The young ones are campaigning for takeout pizza.”

“What? Hell no. My pizza is way better than anything we could get at a restaurant.”

“I’ll let you take that up with them yourself.”

“I will!”

***

Charlie was, as Claire had predicted, ecstatic to learn that they’d finally bit the bullet—because she was their friend, but more than a little because she won the betting pool and also got to lord over him the title of Dean Winchester’s Ultimate Wingwoman every time they talked.

Not that Dean cared, because being with Cas was even better than Dean thought it would be. Sure, they bickered and disagreed, but he also got to see his angel with a big dopey grin just for him. And he got to see him first thing in the morning, soft and sweet. They found all manner of hidey holes, perfect for a lil’ make-out sesh or four. Now, more than ever, the bunker felt like home, and he’d be happy to live there forever, if Cas was there with him.

And now that he was out and they were together, he was having a hard time keeping it in. He’d almost blurted it out to Bobby twice, and he’d accidentally told Garth a story that implied that he and Cas were together, but since Garth knew about the bond, the implication went right by him. He could’ve told them both on the phone, and they’d have been plenty pleased about it, but he wanted to do this in person, formal like.

So he impatiently waited the two weeks it’d be until the open house party Sam was planning. Luckily, he had a honeymoon to book, and he and Cas took Claire on a hunt. Sam and Bobby were working on finding her a partner, but in the meantime, she’d finally promised them she wouldn’t go alone. And it turned out she was pretty good, for a kid. She couldn’t do the professional agent angle, but since the case dealt with teens, she’d been perfect for undercover. And she asked good questions; she was a smart cookie, though she still needed to work on her gun skills. But, again, good for a kid.

When they returned, it was the day before the party and guests were arriving. Bobby, Jody, and Jody’s daughter Alex got in just before Dean, Cas, and Claire got back, and Garth followed not long after. Charlie would arrive around dinner, and a few other trusted hunters would land the next day. Claire, Kevin, and Alex surprised Dean by offering to make dinner, since he’d be doing the bulk of the food for tomorrow’s shindig. This also gave him and Cas time to take the others aside and tell them their news.

Bobby’s gruff “ _finally_ ” warred with Garth’s much more enthusiastic “that’s great, you guys!” (including hugs) and Jody’s more sedate but still warm “congratulations.” The adults were spread out in the library, relaxing with drinks while waiting for the kids to finish dinner.

“Damn it, that means Charlie wins the pot,” Bobby added. Dean wasn’t sure how one opened a beer disgustedly, but Bobby somehow managed it.

“I am totally willing to throw her under the bus and let you know that she probably cheated,” Dean offered. “I kinda confided in her just a couple of weeks before I finally manned up.”

“Nah, she’s had this date locked down for months,” Garth explained. “Something about probability and Mercury in retrograde, or something.” He paused. “Although that _might_ have been a joke …”

“Damn it, you too, Garth?” Dean asked. He looked pleadingly at Jody. “Tell me you’re not involved, Sherriff.”

She shrugged, almost managing to pull off remorseful. “You couldn’t wait just two more weeks? I could’ve won big!”

“You got the motel location, at least,” comforted Garth.

“There were _multiple_ types of bets? Not cool. Just for that, Cas and I are making out the rest of the night, and you have to watch.”

Before he could make good on the threat then and there, Charlie entered. To her surprise, her usual “what’s up, bitches?” was met with thrown bottlecaps and a chorus of boos.

“I just got here! What’d I do?”

“They’re annoyed you won the betting pool,” Cas explained.

Her mouth made a surprised oh. “You guys know about that?” She rounded on the room with a glare. “Who told?”

Everyone laughed, and Charlie shook her head. “No honor amongst thieves, I guess. Besides, it doesn’t matter, since I’m Dean Winchester’s Ultimate Wingwoman.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “I made sure he got together with an _angel_.”

“That he’d been angel married to for months, girl,” Bobby said, exasperated.

“Sure, take all the fun out of it,” she muttered, grabbing a drink and sitting down.

“Well, if we could take a moment to talk about the other reason we’re all here, today,” began Jody, looking around. “I have to say this place is looking pretty spiffy, boys. Considering it was closed up for decades, what you’ve managed to do in just a few months is amazing.”

“It’s been because of Sam that this place has become a resource for hunters, and because of Dean that it’s also become a home,” Cas said.

Dean glanced at Sam, who for once didn’t look constipated at the bunker being called home. Instead, he nodded at Dean. Dean grinned back. “Cas did his part too, putting up with our dumb asses and schlepping furniture around.”

“And what are we, chopped liver?” asked Claire, coming to the door with Kevin and Alex.

“Definitely. We feed you to monsters we don’t know how to kill,” Dean shot back.

“Just for that, dinner is _not_ served.”

Everyone laughed and got up, filing out for food. Dean held back until the end, and Cas joined him, pulling him into a hug. “You haven’t stopped grinning since we got back from the hunt.”

“I’m happy. I’ve finally got everything I need.”

Cas looked at him softly. “Me too.”

When they kissed, Claire said “ewww, old people kissing,” and Dean just grinned harder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I used [Roadside America](https://www.roadsideamerica.com/map/wy) to find weird places for Dean to visit on the trip from Montana to Kansas.
> 
> Just a quick epilogue left after this!


	4. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let's wrap it up

“Ugh, I can’t move.”

“You’re fine, Dean.”

“Go get my angel, Sammy. I’m in too much pain to move.”

“Dude, you heal super quick. Even if you are hurt—which you’re not, because the Amazon was too busy wailing on me to even touch you—you’ve got automatic angel mojo that’ll take care of any papercuts you may have received during the fight.”

“Hey, I hit the wall when she punched me.”

“You always hit the wall. Now get up so we can release Cas.” Sam kicked Dean’s foot but didn’t bother to help him up. Bitch.

Dean struggled to standing, groaning as his not yet healed elbow crunched in a very not good way. “What kind of Amazon puts an angel trap in her house?”

“The kind who knew she was being tailed by a very obvious angel.”

“Yeah … he’s still not so great at the investigation part of hunts. We’re working on it.”

Sam laughed. “How is he so bad at this and so good at everything else?”

“Just lucky, I guess.” Dean extended his arm. Still a little clicky but mostly healed already. He’d live to see another day. “How far to her house?”

“Like fifteen minutes, I think?”

“Ugh. Right. This is going to be a fun drive.” He dug into his pocket. “What the fuck. Where are my–”

Sam held up his hand, which jingled with Dean’s missing keys. “Looking for these?”

“Hand ‘em over, you fucker.”

“Nuh uh. We’ll be closing in on an hour by the time we reach Cas. You’re not driving, unless you feel like crashing your precious car.”

Dean gave his brother bitchface but didn’t argue. As much as he hated Sam driving Baby, he’d hate it if he himself crashed her just because he was being a stubborn ass.

“Drive fast,” he said, sliding in the passenger door (which felt _so_ wrong.).

He kept an eye on the time as Sam sped through town, his stomach clenching as the clocked clicked closer to an hour. He and Cas hadn’t come this close to reaching the bond’s time limit since that first time, back at the very beginning of the bond.

“You doing okay?” Sam asked, flicking a concerned glance at him.

“Fine. I’ll be better once we re– Wait!” Dean went through his mental checklist of symptoms.

Sam automatically hit the brakes. “What? You okay? Is it Cas?”

“I feel fine.”

“Yeah, you just said that, you liar. We’re almost there, though.”

“No. Sam. I feel _fine_. Like, really fine.”

Sam’s eyes were wide. “You’re fine.”

Dean grinned. “I’m fine.”

“Holy shit, it’s finally happened.”

By the time Dean finished double checking that he really wasn’t feeling the effects of being apart from Cas for too long, they’d reached the Amazon’s house. Despite not needing to hurry, he was out of the car and halfway up the sidewalk by the time Sam finished parking.

“Cas!” he yelled, bursting through the front door.

“Dean!”

Dean slid to a stop in front of Cas, who was standing in an angel trap in the living room.

“Cas. I’m fine.”

Cas sighed. “Yes, Dean. You’re very hot. Now can you get me out of this thing please?”

Dean laughed. “Yes, I am, thank you. But no, I mean, I feel fine. Are you fine?”

Cas furrowed his brow for half a second before Dean’s meaning hit him. Dean watched him check his internal clock. “I’m fine too.”

“Wow, Dean, it only took you a year of marriage to give Cas a big head.” Sam strolled into the room like he had all the time in the world.

Dean flipped him off as he bent to scrape some paint off the trap. Cas sighed and stepped out of it, but he didn’t touch Dean. Instead he studied him with a frown, as if trying to read his soul.

“No symptoms at all?”

“No. No nausea, no headache, no ants under my skin. Nada. You?”

Cas nodded. “I feel perfectly–”

“I swear to God, if you say ‘fine’ again, I’m leaving you both here,” Sam whined.

“–normal,” Cas finished with a smirk.

Dean laughed then held up his hands and looked at them, almost expecting to look different, but he looked the same, felt the same. “So, that’s it? Bond is finished forming?”

Cas nodded. “I suppose it is.” His hand twitched but stayed at his side.

Dean thought he understood what that meant. He was a little afraid. Now that they didn’t need that frequent physical connection, would it feel normal when they touched now? No more calm filling him during those first few seconds of connection? No more feeling like all was right with the world? He’d gotten so used to it, it would feel wrong not to have it. But that fear lasted only a few seconds. It didn’t matter. He had the real thing—the love of his life—which was better than a little frisson of feeling. He reached out for Cas’s hand—and felt the familiar calm rush through him. Okay, maybe the frisson was still nice. He winked at his husband.

“Still got it.”

Cas grinned and pulled him in for a kiss. “Of course we do.”

“I am not watching you two make moon eyes at each other for the five-hour drive back home, you know.”

“Nah. Sam, you take the car. I think we’ll fly.” Dean kissed Cas again. “I need my angel to take me home and ravish me right now.”

“Gross.”

“See you at home, Sammy. Don’t drive her too fast, and no fucking iPod. Oh, and also. Don’t think I didn’t notice your use of the word ‘home.’ About time.” Dean grinned.

Sam rolled his eyes. “Yeah, whatever. Go away before you two make me hurl.”

“Cas, let’s go home.”

Cas smiled and hugged him close. “Yes, let’s go home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to everyone who read my fluffy little story. I really love the bond trope and the magically stuck together trope, and as I started writing, this whole home-family subplot sort of inserted itself on its own. I hope it worked out for y'all. :)

**Author's Note:**

> You can come babble excitedly at me on Tumblr [@vateacancameos](http://vateacancameos.tumblr.com/).


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